


Beyond the Tunnel was Whiteness

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Disturbing Themes, Imperial Agent Storyline Spoilers, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Other, Sith Warrior Storyline Spoilers, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-29
Packaged: 2020-08-13 03:43:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20167588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Cipher Nine - Origin story.An occasionally canon divergent retelling of the IA storyline, featuring - inappropriate humor, drinking, horrible people doing horrible things, unhealthy relationships, a pathetic crush, buddy cop comedy elements, psychological trauma and bonus Sith Warrior.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Couple of notes:  
*Please heed the tags. They aren't up there for nothing.  
*For the main pairing here, slow burn means really, really, incredibly slow. They talk for the first time at 26k words in.  
*The first "part" of this fic is mostly gen, so if you're here only for the shippy bits, you have permission to read the end of chapter 6 and chapter 7, then skip to chapter 9, and read from there. Just keep in mind that some parts might not make sense if you do this.  


Hutta is, to put it mildly, a dump. Or, somewhat less mildly, a mucky, wet shithole that stinks like chemical smoke, sulfur, and something slowly decomposing in the swamps. Also, many of its inhabitants apparently don't make a habit of bathing. Maybe to ward off debt collectors. A brilliant tactic. 

The yellowish light filters through the narrow windows of the so called suite, illuminating some dust particles slowly floating through the air. It also colors everything a fairly unpleasant mustard color. Three dead bodies are currently sprawled on the floor, next to an ugly decorative vase. Their still fresh blood stands out in the sea of yellows and beiges, taking on an odd greenish tint due to the lightning.

Well. At least it didn't splash on the carpet. Agent X'tchol, formerly of the Chiss Expansionary Defense Force, since more recent times of Imperial Intelligence, sighs and nudges one of the bodies with his boot. He did tell them to leave, while very much implying the consequences of not following his advice. So much for that. 

But then again, it wasn't as if he expected them to actually listen, apologize profusely for disturbing his privacy, leave, and then somehow manage to keep their mouths shut. He figures he should probably check everything for recorders, listening devices, cameras and any other potential surprises again, and then dump his unexpected and unwelcome guests into the swamp.

By the time somebody notices that they're missing there won't be much left to find. Most of it will probably dissolve due to the corrosive chemicals in the water, or get eaten by the various swamp creatures. But it's still additional unplanned work, and will use up time that could be spent doing something else.

At least it'll be somewhat of a cultural experience, fitting in with the locals and all. He's probably not the only one on Hutta spending his afternoon getting rid of unwanted corpses. He probably shouldn't find this idea strangely amusing, he muses while trying to fit one of said corpses through the window. He still does. And this must be why all the windows are so very narrow on this planet. To make throwing things out them harder. 

He wonders who sent them. Maybe Nem'ro, his incredibly kind and accommodating host, and also a Hutt, whom he's supposed to make support the Empire through planting false evidence pointing to a local conspiracy against him. 

Keeper calls in the evening. They talk. Mostly about the things X'tchol expected, but not completely. Turns out there's some Sith Lord who seems particularly interested in Hutta's mining operations, which means he's terrorizing Headquarters, though why would one of the Sith lower oneself to care about such mundane things personally is beyond X'tchol. 

He doesn't bother questioning this out loud. Questioning isn't what they pay him for, and from what he's been led to believe during field training, the less involved you are in Imperial politics the longer you'll live. At least now he can understand why Keeper is participating in this personally. It's probably best not to anger our all-powerful force-wielding overlords, since our fate will be rather unpleasant should we do so.

X'tchol promises all will be done as requested. Tries his best to be the very picture of a respectful subordinate. He hopes it's convincing enough. He wasn't too good at this part back home either, but this is how the mighty Empire works. You serve, or you die, unless you have the Force.

Then you can still be killed, but only by the other Sith, or if none of the Sith see it happen. It's an oversimplified explanation, X'tchol had to admit, yet oddly accurate. It was very generously provided to him by a fellow cadet in training. He was tall for a Human, and had orange spots all over his face. X'tchol reminds himself to check if that Human is still alive at some point.

The operation itself is pretty easy, in the end. He pretends to be some legendary space pirate and everybody actually seems to believe him, does whatever tasks the illustrious Nem'ro requests he do, gets paid for said tasks, convinces the Human lieutenant that the Empire is amazing and should be joined, wanders the swamps and kills some more people, since that's mostly what everybody seems to want him to do. 

He doesn't feel bad. Most of them were petty criminals and drug dealers, who would've tried to kill him anyway had he wandered unto their turf by accident. That's what he makes sure to remind himself of, when he stands on the second floor of some factory and looks down at the dead. 

One night a Rattataki approaches him at the bar, her eyes glowing silver in the permanent darkness of the palace. She's curious, asks too many questions. X'tchol considers luring her to his room and having her join the others in the swamp. He reconsiders after she implies that she's some "valuable employee" of Nem'ro's.

Hopefully she's smart enough to know when to lose interest.

Unfortunately, she's much smarter than he'd anticipated, though he admits he probably anticipated too little. At least Headquarters seems to think she'll be helpful, and while X'tchol finds himself respectfully disagreeing, he understands the futility of arguing with his superiors. Especially while there's a Sith breathing down their necks. 

Besides, should everything go south later, after they return to Headquarters, she won't be his problem.

And that's assuming he doesn't get the order to "deal with her" before that, which is always a possibility.

"I'm sure Kaliyo and I will become friends." He says, smiling thinly at her, daring her to try something. He'll find out if she does. She isn't impressed, and smiles back. It's the smile of a particularly cheerful shark. The resemblance is uncanny. 

X'tchol mentally concedes that if her actual skills match her confidence, she might end up being useful after all. And what a tragedy that would be.

At least now he'll have somebody to listen to him complain about the weather, and about constantly having to wade through toxic mud. The mud is, in fact, an actual problem, having already eaten away his previous pair of boots, and sections of his pants. He had to buy a new ones from the least dubious looking vendor at the market. 

He does inform her of his opinion about the mud, and Hutta in general, while wading through the bubbling and probably highly radioactive stuff, towards the palace of the mighty Fa'athra. Kaliyo seems to partially agree, and also ends up providing running commentary about Hutta's gang politics, which stalls in the market sell food and drugs that won't kill you.

She also proves helpful when fighting, mostly due to the fact the once she charges towards some unassuming guards while shooting and screaming something about their mothers, X'tchol can quietly position himself behind a conveniently located crate up the hill, and get most of them, and also some new ones that come running due to all the noise.

After it's mostly done she does the shark grin again, wipes some blood from her nose, and begin lamenting about how she's the only one working in this team. X'tchol can't resist informing her about where she should shove said complaints, and she, as he should have expected really, only grins wider, "That what you're into?".

X'tchol rolls his eyes, "Not many guys on Hutta?" he asks, before turning around to hit some guard trying to stand up next to him with his rifle. He's better off playing dead anyway, the idiot.

The light reflects from her piercings, making them look like they're glowing. "None like you." She says. X'tchol is honestly unsure what she's trying to get out of this. Probably nothing. 

"I'm unsure if I should take it as a compliment." He tells her. They're standing before the entrance to the palace, surrounded by torn sandbags and dead guards. There is some very acrid smelling neon yellow smoke wafting about. It's all very romantic. Somebody moaning in pain somewhere to the right is a nice touch.

"You'll come around. Now let's check if those suckers have anything on them, heard they're paid pretty well."

If they do, X'tchol thinks, they don't really deserve said pay.

The mission is successful. The evidence gets planted, most of Fa'athra's army gets murdered, Kaliyo gets two new rifles, a helmet, and enough credits to buy a small asteroid. X'tchol "loans" a speeder, since he assumes that the rightful owner won't have much use for it in his current state.

And then it is time to return to the wonderful Dromund Kaas. While X'tchol can't say he missed it, he freely admits it's better than Hutta.

Of course, since they're two aliens covered in blood and some yellow mud, they get stopped in the spaceport by a bunch of officers, who would very much like to know their business here. Watching Kaliyo yelling obscenities and threatening them is fun enough, at least. 

It takes approximately forty minutes to confirm the fact that they're Intelligence, and they leave the now slightly terrified officers behind. X'tchol is sure he learned more insults and creative theoretical ways to mutilate someone during those forty minutes then he did during training.

He decides to participate too, in the end, by letting them know that they'll, "Hear from his superiors, due to the very inconvenient schedule disruptions caused by their incompetence."

As they exit the spaceport he finds himself regretting that he neglected to mention the Sith involved.

"Aren't you going to welcome me properly, Agent?" Kaliyo asks, mockingly, while they're standing outside the spaceport in the permanent stormy twilight of Dromund Kaas and watching some troopers try to fight off a pack of Vine Cats further down the hill.

X'tchol gestures towards said troopers and the jungle, and declares, "Welcome to Dromund Kaas, Kaliyo."

He makes sure to sound as grandiose as possible, despite the fact that they can't actually see the city from here, or maybe because of it. "Look upon the trees, and be very impressed."

"Love it already, wanna help those suckers?" she motions towards their troopers, who currently seem to be losing. X'tchol doesn't bother considering the idea, it's probably not worth the time. "Maybe later, if they don't get eaten until then. I'm not feeling particularly charitable towards the military right now."

"Clothes that don't stink like Hutta, talk to your bosses, then drinks?" Kaliyo offers, and he shrugs at her, "If you're paying. I'm sure you got a loan or two out of Fa'athra before his unfortunate downfall."

#

In the end, and somewhat to his disappointment, X'tchol doesn't get the opportunity to order the most expensive alcohol available in the kind of dingy Imperial cantina that'll let him and Kaliyo in, and then force Kaliyo to pay for all of it. They get a call from Headquarters.

Which ultimately results in them hauling themselves there, after making a cursory effort to look somewhat presentable. 

Headquarters is a very typical Imperial administrative building, in the sense that it somehow manages to look both fairly nondescript and extremely oppressive at the same time. It's a rare quality reserved only for Imperial administrative or military buildings.

Must be the way they tend to be blocky, mostly windowless, monochrome structures that tower darkly over their surroundings, which are Kaas City in this particular case. Even the Sith Citadel, with all its red lights and flags, manages to look somewhat festive compared to Headquarters.

X'tchol can feel, but can't see, the stares directed at him and Kaliyo once they enter. They probably don't look like they belong here, but at least everybody seems professional enough to not say anything. Still, they look nervous.

Or, he decides when they enter what appears to be the main room of the level, maybe they're not actually the problem, since the main problem seems to be the Sith currently standing next to the holoprojector, talking to Keeper and a mousy dark haired woman.

X'tchol immediately resolves to stay where he is, conveniently half hidden behind a shelving unit, and thanks whatever higher powers are responsible that Kaliyo doesn't attempt to draw any attention to them either. Unfortunately, his chosen strategy, consisting of "Just stand quietly in the background until the immediate danger has left to do important Sith things" fails immediately. He's noticed, and forced to approach.

He can't see the Sith's face due to the metal helmet he's wearing. To be honest, said helmet would look unimpressive on anyone else, due to looking like a smooth metal egg with a vertical glowing slit in the middle, which, impractically enough, doesn't seem to have any holes for eyes.

X'tchol actually begins wondering whether it's possible to see using the force, before realizing said train of thought is mostly his way of distracting himself for the "feeling". It's hardly the best word to describe whatever it is, but it's the only one he can currently think of.

The air around their visitor is unnaturally heavy. It feels like trying to breathe water, and, somehow, at the same time also like being covered by something wet, heavy and slightly electric. While this hardly sounds very intimidating when described, it's incredibly disorienting. 

And the fact that it's this noticeable probably means that the Sith is strong, and as much as X'tchol hates to admit it, will probably easily reduce him to a wet stain on the floor if displeased.

Which, unfortunately enough, he appears to be. Turns out that this Sith is the one that was interested in the Hutta operation. Darth Jadus. He seems less violently psychotic then what X'tchol would have expected from a Sith, based on his, admittingly, lacking knowledge.

But that probably only makes him more dangerous.

He isn't any less of a paranoid fanatic then expected though, with his vague but grand proclamations about the traitors and dissidents among and around them. And when Jadus publicly declares that X'tchol "served him well on Hutta", and thereafter dumps the responsibility of rooting out those dissidents on his head, X'tchol finds himself regretting that he didn't drown in some swamp back on the thrice damned muddy planet.

It would have been a slow and humiliating death, but at least there would've been nobody around to witness it. Also, compared to what his Lordship will probably do to him should he fail, drowning is a swamp sounds like a decent way to go. 

Keeper does try to discourage Jadus, and while his efforts are unsuccessful, it comforts X'tchol somewhat to think that his superior either values him enough to try and prevent him from getting involved in this, or thinks that his involvement will only make the situation worse.

Ultimately, X'tchol finds himself nodding, and very respectfully agreeing with everything Jadus says,since refusing or arguing would mean dying the death of the brave but dumb. Or, worse, being tortured before his future colleagues until he changes his mind, something which he's sure will contribute very much to their respect for him.

Neither of those seems like a very appealing option.

Thankfully, Kaliyo keeps her mouth shut throughout that very one-sided conversation. Probably due to having a strong enough self preservation instinct. And being aware the once Jadus leave she'll get to say whatever her dark shriveled little heart desires about him.

Speaking of Jadus, he seems pleased enough to leave all future proceedings to Keeper and depart. The moment his Lordship absolves Headquarters of his presence, the air returns to its usual state, and people, who, as X'tchol only now noticed, were busy very unconvincingly pretending not to watch everything happening, return to their designated tasks. Breathing becomes easier. He looks at Kaliyo, she returns said look, lifting an eyebrow. "Such respect of authority, Agent." She mutters. X'tchol wants to retort somehow, but can't manage to think of something appropriately insulting.

#

"Why did you join Intelligence?" Keeper asks him once they're alone in his office. Kaliyo agreed to be left behind for debriefing, probably motivated by the idea of squeezing as much money as possible from Intelligence, and X'tchol can't help but pity the poor soul dealing with her right now.

As for himself, by now he wants to shoot something or someone. Maybe not Keeper, since the Human just tried to get Jadus to leave him alone. He's aware that those feelings are completely irrational. He's probably tired after Hutta and Jadus and everything.

He should try his best to avoid giving away his state.

Humans usually find him hard to read as long as he maintains a neutral expression. Must be the eyes. They tend to find the lack of visible pupil unsettling, and the red glow doesn't help matters. It's actually an advantage in his line of work.

"You have my file, sir." He answers after considering his options. It's an honest enough answer, but one that hopefully wouldn't cast doubt on his loyalty.

"What happened thirteen months ago does not, in fact, appear in your file. It's classified information. I understand you were given a choice, and since you're standing here right now It's clear which of the options available you picked."

"No offense meant, but it wasn't much of a choice, Sir." X'tchol can't resist. Which isn't good. He's letting somebody see some of the bitterness he's still feeling, in a situation where confrontation isn't going to help matters. 

He can feel the scars itch, even though they've healed long before he left for Hutta. He wants to scratch at them. He doesn't. The air conditioning is humming somewhere in the background. White noise.

It was thirteen months ago. It's over now, been over for a long time now, and thinking about it won't change anything. He tells himself while staring at the light fixture on the wall before him, right above Keeper's head, but he can still feel the Human looking at him, through him. 

He's probably analyzing whatever he's seeing and reaching his conclusions about it. They noticed nothing back then, and will notice nothing now, but X'tchol still finds himself focusing on breathing slowly. Calmly.

"I'm sure you were given time to consider your alternatives. Hutta proved that you are, as we assumed previously, an asset. I'm aware you aren't standing here due to some notions of patriotism, which, unfortunately, usually turn out to be misguided. This isn't glamorous work, we're sanitation workers, we clean up after the military and the Sith and do the jobs no one else will. Without us, though, the Empire falls apart. So we do whatever is necessary - even if it's thankless and ugly. I assume you understand?" Keeper says, and X'tchol has to force himself to look at his eyes.

They're light blue and flinty. Like ice. The room feels cold, even though the temperature here is probably maintained carefully. "I understand completely, sir." He manages to say, keeping his voice as monotone as possible. He's hard to read. They won't notice anything off.

"I'm glad." Keeper comments placidly. Neither of them is lying, but both of them aren't saying everything. X'tchol understands this much. He supposes he should get used to this. This is his life now.

Unless he gets murdered by Jadus in a few days, once he does something wrong.

Since he has nothing more to say, X'tchol finds himself staring at the fancy lamp again. It isn't very interesting. It didn't change over the last minute. It hurts his eyes. Keeper, probably understanding this particular conversation is over, summons somebody over the intercom.

After approximately another minute that X'tchol spends ruining his eyesight by staring at a bright light, the door slides open with a hiss, and in come Kaliyo and the mousy woman. Kaliyo's general state, from quick look, seems to be "hates everything more than usual", and the mousy woman just looks incredibly frustrated. 

The fact that he's, apparently, not the only one for whom the last few minutes were an incredibly enjoyable experience immediately makes him feel better. 

"I've read reports of your... previous work," The mousy woman, whom Keeper introduces as Watcher Two, liaison to base, says. She seems more confident now that she's safe from Sith and maybe Kaliyo. "They were quite impressive. I look forward to working with you."

Judging by her tone, she's probably aiming for neutrally-pleasant, but mentioning his "previous work" is probably the last way somebody should attempt to make such an impression. Still, her being his "liaison to base" means he'll have to work with her later, and therefore should avoid ruining their relationship immediately. 

On account of this, he decides to simply make a mental note about her lacking social skills, and tries his best to sound civil when making a cursory attempt to get to know her. He doubts he can manage friendly right now, anyway. 

He then ends up regretting said attempt. Turns out she's some sort of superior Human, genetically engineered to be incredibly intelligent. And, as she makes sure to point out, such a procedure cost quite a lot. This information doesn't really serve to improve X'tchol's opinion of her. 

With this much money invested they could've spared some extra effort to make her tolerable to be around.

Finding out that Kaliyo is now his partner out in the field is actually relieving. It could have been somebody worse. At least Kaliyo is consistent, in the sense that she seems to operate according to some, slightly odd, logic, and can be easily motivated by material rewards. 

Once they exit Headquarters with their new orders and equipment they're greeted by a panorama of Kaas City. It's raining, as it often does, and all the lights below seem washed out. The edges of the city blur into the sky.

And X'tchol finds himself wondering about the answer to the question he decided not to answer. Why did he join. Probably because he wanted to live a bit longer. Hardly a noble motivation.


	2. Chapter 2

"Another reason it's useful to have aliens on staff." Watcher Two remarks while explaining the situation to them. It stings a bit to hear this, but X'tchol supposes the phrase wasn't intended to be insulting. 

He smiles and tells her not to worry about him. She replies that she doesn't like when her partners get killed. Of course she doesn't. Getting people she's technically responsible for killed while they're out in the field won't reflect well on her. And she can't have that. He supposes he can understand. 

The unfinished statue looms against the purple sky. Parts of the makeshift ramps around it, most of them either crudely assembled or half disassembled by the rebels, cover the canyon's walls. The tree they're made of seems to be slowly rotting due to atmospheric conditions. Which is to say, due to the fact that it's always damp and rainy here. 

X'tchol finds himself remarking that the Sith that wanted this thing built must have been "overcompensating for something". Kaliyo gasps, and stares at him, looking scandalized, "What happened to 'Yes my Lord, I'll get on my knees and suck your huge dick if you ask me to?" She mocks. 

"Unlike somebody, I happen to enjoy breathing, and would like to continue enjoying it in the future," He informs her, "Also, I didn't say that."

She shrugs, "Might as well have, kinda sounded like it."

They have their target. It isn't hard to subdue him. X'tchol shoves him up against the metal wall of the dingy shack he was hiding in, and injects the drug. He looks scared, really scared, staring at X'tchol with terrified, wide open, accusing, brown eyes for thirty or so seconds, before the drug begins doing its job. After he just looks like he isn't really there anymore. Like it'd be possible to snap his neck right there and he wouldn't care. Kaliyo makes some remark about how this stuff must be pretty strong. 

X'tchol mentally agrees. And hopes that this stuff will never get used on him.

He tells them what they want to know after some gentle prodding, questions about his "friends". X'tchol wonders why do they continue to fight. They must know that they're destined to fail. This band of exhausted slaves with makeshift weapons couldn't defeat him and Kaliyo, so he doubts they'll prevail over some fifty or so Sith and about a fourth of the military. Their little rebellion probably continues only because somebody important and powerful enough is benefiting from it. Using the ensuing chaos to further their personal agendas. 

But desperation often makes you delusional. 

They know where to find the information they came for, now. The target is looking at him with his unsettling, empty eyes. "What should I think about now." He mumbles. They probably rebelled because they wanted to live. Unfortunately for them, X'tchol wants to live too.

It's the best decision, he tells himself. Target's so out of it he won't feel anything, and it'll take awhile for him to come down. His chances of surviving alone outside are pretty slim, but if he somehow miraculously does and ends up remembering their little conversation it won't reflect well on X'tchol, professionally. 

So he takes his time aiming, just to delay. "Don't worry. You don't have to think anymore." He can feel his hands shaking. This is different from before. He can't write it off as self-defense now. But this is what he, knowingly, signed up for. There is no way back for him now. So he shoots. 

"Cripes. Don't even think he felt it." For once Kaliyo sounds like she doesn't quite has anything to add, or any inappropriate jokes to make about the situation. Somehow, he doubts her newfound somberness will last long. 

They exit the hideout. It's quieter outside now. It isn't hard to find the pile of charred alien corpses in the shadow of the statue. The datapad is there, as promised, an outdated model, slightly dented but still working. He turns it on, and begins uploading whatever is on it to Headquarters. 

Looking at the data is pointless. It's probably all encrypted. And he doesn't really want to, anyway.

He gets a call. It's Kashar. X'tchol spoke to the other alien before leaving Headquarters, he seemed inoffensive enough. Better then Watcher Two, at least. There are some now development, but they can't say anything about them right now.

And then he's being transferred to Keeper. Something is definitely happening. Maybe Jadus decided he's taking too long, and is terrorizing everybody personally again.

His suspicion is partially confirmed when Keeper tells him he's to report to Jadus in person. X'tchol supposes that this is how his very short career in Intelligence ends. Keeper is kind enough to warn him by reminding him that Jadus is one scary bastard, and therefore should be treated with respect and listened to.

X'tchol understands that if they'll need a scapegoat, somebody to turn Jadus on, they'll choose him. Keeper is important, and probably has connections, Watcher Two cost too much to "make", and Kaliyo will probably manage to conveniently disappear as soon as she senses her ass is in danger.

He, on the other hand, won't really have places to disappear to. The insides of the Citadel are actually impressive. Complicated lattices and staircases, all back-lit in red. Huge black marble sculptures of important dead Sith. And all of this somehow manages to not look tacky.

X'tchol tries his best to not be noticed by any of the Sith milling about. He doesn't need any more of them in his life right now.

"So, think he'll want to talk to me too?" Kaliyo asks. She is being loud, and seems suspiciously happy, considering the situation.

He glares at her, and tries to make said glare as murderous as possible. If he were force sensitive, he could have managed to set her on fire with the power of his glaring. Or something along those lines.

He heard they can "summon" lightning at least.

Sadly, he's not, and therefore his glare only seems to make Kaliyo happier. Still, thinking of setting Kaliyo on fire makes him feel better. Distracts him from the mental image of their target lying in a pool of what used to be his head earlier today.

Not that any of it matters, since he's probably walking towards his impending doom and all.

The reach what seems to be their door. A cyborg is standing beside it. Unusual, since from what X'tchol has been led to believe the Sith don't really like them, considering them only somewhat better than aliens.

"The Rattataki must remain outside. The master has not requested her presence," He informs them. At this statement, joy begins practically radiate from Kaliyo. X'tchol is sure that this is the happiest he'd seen her during the few weeks they'd known each other.

"Looks like I'll have to sit this one out then, real shame. You have fun." She chirps, and reaches up to pat his shoulder condescendingly.

"You don't have to go, Kaliyo. Listen -" X'tchol begins saying, attempting to convey his actual thoughts through his tone. _If you abandon me now, and should I live through this, I'll hunt you down and sell you to whoever offers the highest bounty for your traitorous face_. She interrupts him, "Ah, don't worry about me. Now that I'm a loyal Imperial Agent, who am I to defy the Dark Council's wishes?".

And then she slinks away. The bitch. Probably to hijack his speeder, make a break for the spaceport, and then sell both the speeder and the weapons he left in it somewhere in Hutt space.

He follows the cyborg inside, deciding to try and ignore his rising panic as well as he can. Jadus will feel it, and looking weak won't help him. He didn't do anything wrong, didn't even have a chance to yet.

Jadus seems reasonable for a Sith, so maybe, if he did screw up somehow, he can get a second chance. Killing him will be a waste of the budget spent on his training.

There are no red lights here, so the room looks gloomy after the light show outside. More cyborgs line the walls in two rows. They're freakishly identical to the one who brought him here, and is now blocking the entrance, which is also the only escape route.

Jadus is standing before him. He's still wearing the helmet. X'tchol hopes Intelligence will make an effort to stop Kaliyo from pawning off all his stuff after he's gone. Jadus begins whatever speech he has planned.

And X'tchol finds himself gradually relaxing. It seems he wasn't summoned here due to issues with his work. The opposite.

Jadus seems to want his "cooperation" in some future scheme of his. The venture itself gets described in very vague yet menacing terms, but the first step of it seems to be watching and waiting, which is easy enough to do.

X'tchol notes that he's probably ideal for this sort of thing. He's some not entirely willingly recruited alien. He isn't loyal to anyone in particular, and has no reason to be happy with the Empire.

Even more importantly, if he decides to try and expose Jadus at some point, absolutely nobody will believe him.

So he kneels, swears fealty. Probably gets himself indirectly involved in Imperial Politics. It's not like he can really refuse, since refusal might mean him getting struck by lightning.

"Remember that you walk the path to power - and remember that I am eternal." this seems to be Jadus's way of dismissing him. X'tchol inclines his head respectfully, just in case, and turns to exit the office.

The cyborg lets him pass.

Overall, the meeting actually turned out much better then he would've hoped. He didn't get fried by lightning, or sliced to pieces. Kaliyo will be disappointed.

When Watcher Two calls to inform him that he should go interrogate some scientist's daughter he actually manages to be friendly. He wonders if she's surprised he's still alive.

He finds Kaliyo on the landing platform, fiddling uselessly with his speeder. She doesn't bother stopping once she notices him. "So... how big was that dick?" she asks.

X'tchol makes an attempt to replicate her shark grin. He's sure his version is somewhat worse. He's had less practice "You can ask next time you see him." he offers, before shooing her away and unlocking the speeder.

It seems mostly undamaged.

"Fuck you." She smiles back.

#

The daughter had been surprisingly cooperative. It didn't take much to convince her to give up her father. X'tchol had only had to promise her his money. Theovor was probably not a very good father.

"So we're clear? Imperial rations are nasty, and I lived on grubs and two-credit wine for a year." Kaliyo complains while munching through yet another ration bar. They've been "camping" on top of a large rock, hidden behind some trees, for a few uneventful hours now.

Luckily, their rock turned out to be tall enough unreachable by the wildlife. And the entrance to the compound where their scientist is hiding is just below their spot.

X'tchol had decided against Kaliyo's very helpful suggestion of "Let's just barge in and murder everybody, like we always do.", since doing so would've probably raised an alarm, and given Theodore time to escape.

Which he doubtlessly would've done, after hearing that Intelligence is coming for him. 

And it's not as if he and Kaliyo can pass for anything other than Intelligence on Dromund Kaas. They're not Sith, or even Human, and their equipment is too expensive and not flashy enough for bounty hunters.

But, after two hours of sitting around and listening to Kaliyo talk the "usual" option is beginning to look more tempting. They should probably be quiet, since they're trying to stay hidden and all, but X'tchol can't suffer through another minute of being quiet, "Not enjoying the Imperial lifestyle? I remember you publicly declaring your loyalty today. What patriotism."

Kaliyo snorts and tosses the empty wrapper of the ration bar off their rock. It's the third one she's eaten while they've sat here, so either they're not as bad as she makes them out to be, or she's very hungry. "I had no idea how shit your rations are when said it."

X'tchol smiles, "Just so you know, complaining about the rations is considered high treason in the Imperial military."

"Bullshit."

"Say it again after they arrest you."

"Again, bullshit. We aren't even military. If you're so bored maybe we should just storm the fucking compound anyway." She says, and X'tchol has to admit she might have a point.

Waiting forever won't lead anywhere, it's beginning to get dark, and they don't have enough water on them to do so anyway. Grathan, the Sith that owns the compound, and harbors Theovor, is supposedly pretty unpopular. X'tchol had hoped that by now one of his rivals would've launched an attack, giving them an opportunity to get inside unnoticed.

He could get some rest, too. He must be tired, if he's finding Kaliyo sort of funny.

He's about to suggest that they pack up and return tomorrow when they hear screaming from below. Kaliyo immediately grabs his rifle, and pokes the scope through the foliage to use as some kind of makeshift binoculars.

"Damn." she concludes after peeking through it, and wordlessly passes him the rifle. There's more screaming, now accompanied by high-pitched yelling, and even something that sounds like roaring.

X'tchol decides to look too, and finds himself witnessing one of the oddest sights he'd witnessed is his life. No wonder Kaliyo was speechless.

A Sith, accompanied by a blue Twi'lek, seem to be slaughtering most of the compound below them. It's definitely an unexpected development, but also not an unwelcome one.

"Well, let's go." he tells Kaliyo while slinging the rifle over his shoulder.

As they sneak inside the mostly empty compound, X'tchol contemplates anonymously sending the Sith and Twi'lek a message thanking them for their service in assisting Imperial Intelligence. Maybe some flowers too.

It's eerily quiet here. All the noise from outside can't be heard this deep underground. The daughter's security codes and card still work. Theovor isn't horribly hard to find, but he's flanked by two very large droids.

"You! You though you could take me by surprise, but you can't!" He yells. He seems to think they killed his daughter to get to him, since they're using her codes. X'tchol isn't about to disabuse him of this notion, since informing him she sold him out would just be cruel.

Also Theovor probably wouldn't believe anything he says on principle.

Still, he'd prefer not to fight the giant droids up close. If he could somehow get to higher ground it'd be a different story, but right now they're inside closed room deep underground. 

"Calm down. Your daughter if fine," He informs Theovor, to buy time. Theovor is of course not convinced, apparently some of their people got his wife, who wasn't fine at all after they were done with her.

X'tchol isn't terribly sorry, not being personally responsible and all. There are some crates to the left from where they're standing. He looks at Kaliyo and nods slightly while looking in the direction of said crates.

She smiles and draws one of the many guns that she insists on hauling around. And then Theovor, finishing his dramatic, probably very well thought out, speech about the various misgivings of Imperial Intelligence in particular and the Empire more broadly, shoots.

The droids wake up. X'tchol rolls behind his crates. He decides aiming for what seems to be the "eye" of these things is the best idea.

Kaliyo does what she does best, which is to say shoots at everything, probably hoping at least some of it will hit. Turns out X'tchol's worries about the droids were unnecessary.

As intimidating as they look, they aren't meant to fight in small, closed off spaces either.

It does seem like one of them ended up shooting Theovor, probably after getting it's "eye" blown up. X'tchol hopes Intelligence didn't need the man himself, only his data. 

Which won't be a problem, since the various tech in the room seems, thankfully, undamaged. X'tchol approaches what seems to be the most used computer in the room. It has some empty mugs next to it, at least.

Meanwhile, Kaliyo is busy desecrating Theovor's corpse. Meaning stealing his money and belt. "What? It's a nice belt, you can wear it too." She informs him when she catches the look he's giving her.

He connects his datapad to the computer, and downloads whatever programs will allow people back in Kaas City access their data remotely. Watcher Two calls.

From what they can see back there, this information is useful, and he's to return to Headquarters straight away, while she finishes working on decrypting it.

As they set out towards the compounds entrance they end up stumbling upon the colorful pair from earlier. Literally colorful. The Sith is an actual Sith, rather than a Human following their religion, and as such has bright red skin and hair, and the Twi'lek is about the same shade of blue as X'tchol himself.

The Sith smiles, exposing teeth that are definitely sharper than human ones. The Twi'lek is peering at them curiously over his shoulder. They don't seem about to attack, which is somewhat surprising, considering those two had just killed most of the compound.

"Whatever you come here to do is probably classified, but I hope it went well." The Sith says. He sounds like he's commenting on the weather, which is to say, conversational enough. He has several gold piercings, as well as various beads and ornaments in his hair.

He's also very much covered in blood. And seemingly unbothered by it. Sith probably get used to this sort of thing pretty early in life.

X'tchol wants to somehow dissolve into the air. He has more Sith in his life then he'd like to already. He doesn't require more. But this seems to be an apprentice, rather than a big important one, which means he might be... nicer?

"Oh, it went well, got even better now if you're asking me." Kaliyo says before he can begin thinking of an appropriate reply. He turns to stare at her, and to his horror notices she's looking over the Sith with a certain, for lack of a better word, appreciation.

X'tchol can, objectively speaking, see the appeal. The Sith is attractive enough, but the pointy bone spurs on his face and lack of eyebrows are disconcerting. And there's the whole Sith thing, which is probably the biggest problem.

This is the moment Kaliyo gets crushed into pulp by the force, he's sure of it. Except it doesn't happen. The Sith raises the bone spur he has for an eyebrow, and finally, explains, "You were sitting in trees when I arrived, so I decided I might as well assist certain bodies of government."

X'tchol appreciates the explanation. Even though it explains absolutely nothing. This situation is still very strange. The Twi'lek yawns, she looks somewhat bored.

"So? You done terrorizing the spies?" She pipes up. The Sith sighs, it sounds oddly long-suffering, and doesn't discourage his companion from continuing, "I mean, terrorize them all you want, but we're... you know, covered in blood, completely covered in it! I didn't know you could be so covered in it before!".

The Sith just makes a vague hand gesture, and begins walking towards the light. The Twi'lek follows, almost running to catch up. And the last thing X'tchol manages to hear, while still rooted in place, watching those two leave, and still feeling vaguely confused, is "Vette, you've ruined the moment."


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing they hear when they finally make their way back to Headquarters is Keeper saying something about Jadus wishing to observe, and the second is being directed to "take a seat now that they've finally arrived."

X'tchol supposes they're somewhat late. At least they're not early. Milling about in the lobby would've just made things awkward.

Most of their team, which includes Watchers Two and Three as well as Keeper, is already sitting around a conference table. X'tchol is sure this table wasn't there before.

Either he didn't notice it, due to paying attention to more important things, or they actually forced some poor petty officer to drag it here. X'tchol prefers the second option, just because of the mental image it presents.

A holoimage of Jadus, in all his masked glory, flickers to life before their table.

Turns out the terrorists they've been hunting for almost two days now are about to strike by blowing up some power conduits beneath the city. And to think X'tchol had hoped to get some sleep tonight.

The situation is improved further by the fact that the specific power conduits about to be attacked seem to be located beneath some place possessing an incredibly cheerful name. "The Dark Temple".

"That doesn't sound very promising." He finds himself dryly commenting.

Keeper takes said comment as a cue to remedy his, and probably Kaliyo's, ignorance about the archaeological wonders of Dromund Kaas, which are likely many, varied, and terrifying.

Turns out this Dark Temple is very old, having been built even before the planet's resettlement, and was originally sealed during the city's construction.

The Dark Council, having nothing better to do, had apparently decided to go digging around in there recently, and had it reopened, only for the construction crews to find out that it's inhabited by "Force Driven Phenomena".

In other words, very much haunted by vengeful force-ghosts and seemingly capable of driving people who enter it insane.

X'tchol finds that he needs a moment to fully appreciate the hopefully temporary collective idiocy that caused a group of people to agree that yes, of course, building some vital power conduits beneath an old Sith temple, of all possible places, was a very good idea indeed.

And to make everything worse, the terrorists who went in there are apparently ready and willing to commit suicide by Haunted Sith Temple. Which means they won't give up easily.

Jadus interrupts Keeper, who has begun laying out their plan of action, which seems to involve sending a squad into the temple, by declaring that "There will be no squad. The Dark Temple is sacred ground, and will not be unduly disturbed. My agent will go alone." As if the Temple didn't get disturbed enough already by the construction crews.

Which, if X'tchol is understanding this correctly, were sent by whatever council Jadus is part of.

Keeper tries objecting, but gets, and X'tchol notes that it's becoming a trend by now, shut up by Jadus, who just disconnects the call. It's not like they have the right to decide something here. What Jadus wants, Jadus will get. 

It has been decided.

He supposes he should be flattered that a member of the Dark Council has such faith in his abilities. "Agent MIA after being driven insane by building", that'll definitely be a report future generations will get to giggle over.

Then again, he rationalizes, maybe whatever is inside the temple won't affect him that much, since he's about as force sensitive as a brick. And it isn't as if the temple itself can hurt him in anyway, except maybe deciding to collapse down on him.

"I'll make sure the job is done." He says, assuming that everybody around the table can understand the underlying, "or die horribly in the process."

"We'll monitor you as long as we can, but the temple blocks most transmissions. So, just, ah - good luck, agent." Watcher Two sounds a bit worried, as if the fact that he's maybe being sent to die actually bothers her. It's kind of sweet if it does.

X'tchol smiles. He can feel the scars stretching, Watcher Two is still looking at him nervously. "If I come back, you're buying drinks." He informs her. And she, surprisingly, seems to thaw a bit and agrees. Even smiles.

He might even take her up on that promise. See what she does then. When half of Kaas City sees her in public with an alien.

He turns to Kaliyo, who's busy cleaning dried blood from underneath her nails with a tactical knife while looking very bored. She's probably doing this on purpose, to prove her complete and utter indifference regarding the proceedings.

"So, let's go see the haunted temple? You'll get to rob more dead people."

"How much do you think Sith relics are worth on the holonet?" She asks, suddenly looking much more interested in the proceedings. X'tchol is once again, amused by how easy it is to motivate her, at least until noticing the clearly disapproving look he's getting from Keeper.

#

The "Dark Temple" is an appropriate name. It's night now, but due to the lack of windows its halls will probably be equally dark and dreary during the day. Its also surprisingly well preserved, considering its age.

The statues seems to watch, blank stone eyes following their movements.

People are walking inside the walls. X'tchol can hear them. They whisper things he can't understand, but can hear very well. He decides he's no longer finding his situation slightly hilarious.

It's dark here, but there are still shadows in the corners, around the statues. They're moving. Even Kaliyo seems unnerved. She asks if he can hear them too.

He nods. Somebody is coming from behind the corner. It's a woman wearing Sith robes. They sneak past. The whispers get louder, and then go silent.

There's screaming coming from somewhere deeper inside, and then it dissolves into strange gurgling sounds. Blood has been spilled. The voices are satisfied.

X'tchol hates this place. And to think it seemed like a nice, normal, crumbling ruin from the outside. He hoped he won't be able to fully experience the place due to his lack of force powers. He was wrong.

Turns out the damn temple can posses people, and there are currently hundreds of them shambling around and about, very realistically reenacting ancient Sith feuds. Which, unfortunately, weren't any less violent back then.

They reach a big hole in one of the walls that appears recently, quickly and intentionally made. X'tchol assumes that is their destination. Nobody contacted him since they entered the building, so he can’t ask anyone if he’s even walking in the right direction.

They're probably already hard at work erecting a memorial for him outside Headquarters. He hopes they'll bother to add some nice gold accents for his heroism and loyalty.

And that means that it's only him and Kaliyo, against the terrorists and the temple. Inside the hole is a tunnel, full of chunks of rock, leftover explosives and many dead bodies. Did any of them actually survive to do the deed?

As they push forward the floor, and walls, change. They're no longer ancient rock, full of moss and decorative Sith carvings.

Instead they’re smooth gray metal, Imperial standard issue, hard to miss really.

The only terrorists still alive are inside the control room, busy planting the bombs. They can't see him from behind the corner. He shoots. They're sluggish, slow. Probably tired.

They've come this far. Had all their friends die, probably in unpleasant ways, right before their eyes.

It's very easy. The three vine cats they fought outside the temple provided more of a challenge than those half dead humans. And X'tchol can't shake the feeling that something is wrong. It all seems too smooth.

Maybe the strike here is a distraction after all. There's nobody to interrogate now, though.

Except there is. Once they disarm the bomb, he notices that one of their terrorists is still alive.

Probably not for long. He's leaning against a control panel, bleeding all over it, but seems still lucid.

Also proud. That isn't the expression of somebody who just lost. Or maybe he went off the rails already.

"You. You're with the military?" He asks. He seems aware that he's not getting out of here alive, and thinks that X'tchol won't either. Not insane then, not yet, X'tchol decides.

He also respectfully disagrees. He's still alive, and survived worse. The people wandering the temple are violent, but they're not very smart. He'll come back, and will get to gloat over his co-worker's disbelief.

But the terrorist thinks they're both doomed, and therefore feels talkative. He probably wants, deep down, somebody to acknowledge what him and his friends accomplished, what they died for.

"Maybe we'll both die. Maybe no. I know you're one of the terrorists."

"Heh. I'm one of terrorists alright. Like everyone you kill." The human spits. And then he begins rambling, telling X'tchol about his ideological justifications. X'tchol doesn't really care for any of it until he catches the words "There's more where this came from."

"You knew you couldn't pull this off. What did you actually want?" He prods.

The reply to his question sounds, at first, like a continuation of what he heard so far. An unoriginal, but not incorrect, tirade about the general horribleness of the Empire. But then comes that mention of "other cells, other planets".

Interesting. X'tchol decides. The Human seems to think he and his merry band had already won. He hasn't, especially since he's spilling their brilliant plans right now. "There's worse coming, but this you're going to learn. Shoot me now, Imperial, before the ghosts get into you head."

X'tchol isn't really this afraid of the ghosts anymore. He can hear them, and they sure sound unnerving, but they didn't get him yet, and probably won't anytime soon. His new friend, on the other hand, seems very afraid.

He smiles down at the Human, "You don't care if the ghosts get into my head. You're worried they'll get into yours."

The Human doesn't bother denying this. "I saw what happened to my friends. I took comfort in the fact I'd die when we took out the power grid. Have mercy, kill me now, before the ghosts come."

X'tchol doesn't consider himself a good individual. Being one is impossible in his line of work. Isn't even worth trying.

But the terrorist might know something more, something he isn't saying due to assuming his head is about to be blown off, or eaten by ghosts, anyway. Futile. X'tchol crouches next to him, and begins bandaging the wound in his side.

It's looking bad, but no so bad that he won't survive the trip back to Headquarters.

The Human seems shocked, even touched. X'tchol resists the desire to laugh at him. "You'll be expected to cooperate." He reminds his, now, prisoner.

That doesn't seem to dampen the Human's newfound happiness. He still looks far too hopeful. Kaliyo laugh-snorts. X'tchol can feels his smile widen. At this prisoner's expression shifts from "actually hopeful" to "slightly terrified". He probably finally realized what Imperials usually do with their prisoners.

"At least where you're going there are no ghosts." X'tchol informs him.

They leave. It's slow and plodding, since X'tchol has to let the prisoner lean on him. They meet the same Sith from the compound still with his unusual companion, near the entrance. The Sith smiles at them, yellow cat-like eyes glittering, while the blue Twi'lek waves. X'tchol nods in acknowledgment. 

When they return to Headquarters, he'll leave their new friend to get to know the interrogators, and then shower.

His hair is sticking unpleasantly to his forehead, due to sweat, blood, and probably some machine oil from that barrel he shot in the control room. He still feels like something is wrong.

He decides to ignore this feeling. Worrying about possible outcomes is a job best left to Watcher Two, anyway.

#

And of course, everything goes to shit. Again.

X'tchol has to drag himself to a cargo port, and shoot some terrorists trying to leave. Said cargo port is for some unknown reason located smack dab in the middle of the city. Unlike the passenger one, which is in the middle of the jungle.

This isn't even surprising. Both spaceports were probably planned by the same, very creative, team that decided to build the power conduits beneath the Dark Temple. Imperial Civil Engineering never stops impressing, but probably not in the way it's meant to.

The strike at the temple was, after all, a distraction. Meant to hide the terrorists were planning to blow up Jadus and his entourage at the same time. So much for "And remember, that I am eternal" or whatever it was Jadus told him during their meeting.

Not such a loss, considering. At least now X'tchol doesn't have to help Jadus with whatever his scheme was.

Killing Jadus meant killing everybody else aboard the ship, including a few thousand civilians. But everything is always a means to an end. He, maybe, would've ended up doing the same thing, in such a situation.

Headquarters is looking pretty depressing right now. Everybody seems both tired and relieved while staring blankly at their monitors.

Before leaving for the cargo port X'tchol handcuffed his, then very confused, prisoner to one of the chairs. He's gone now, which means he either managed to escape while his coworkers mourned Jadus, or was transferred to interrogation already.

Either way, X'tchol won't be seeing this one again.

This temporary quiet doesn't end up lasting long. They get a call from the terrorist leader, some Human who calls himself "the Eagle", probably to seem more mysterious.

He delivers a speech. It's nicely written but pretty standard in terms of content. 

Their government is corrupt, the Sith are only interested in their own asses, the high military also mostly care about their own asses, but also about the Sith's. Everybody who lives in the Empire is probably aware of these things to some extent by now.

X'tchol can hear Keeper instructing somebody to pull up any files they have on this Eagle. So, apparently they had some information, but did nothing until somebody important enough was killed. He finds it kind of funny, at least until he begins guessing how many people the Sith will decide to hang if this gets out.

The Eagle rambles on in the background. "Anyone who speaks out in favor of reform is kidnapped and tortured by Imperial Intelligence. This must not continue", true enough, but also kind of personal, and will sound much more convincing and noble from the mouth of somebody who didn't recently give the order to murder a couple thousand civilians to prove a point.

Then what X'tchol already heard at the temple gets repeated somewhat more eloquently. More strikes, more planets. And the Eagle dramatically concludes his speech. His image flickers out.

X'tchol narrows his at eyes at the empty space where the blue tinged projection was a moment ago. He can't say he appreciates somebody who's probably as horrible as any of the people in this room, judging them from his pedestal.

These terrorists have resources, and seem to be some sort of organized network. Either the Eagle is well off, which somehow seems unlikely, or somebody is funding them.

Which means that in the end they're just like him or his coworkers, getting paid to murder and sprout ideological nonsense while doing so, whether they believe said nonsense or no.

"So, our enemy has a name. Think you can deal with that, Agent?" Keeper's voice interrupts his thoughts.

"It won't be a problem, sir." X'tchol answers, reflexively. He could've expected they'll select him to deal with this mess. He's already deep in it anyway.

And then, just like that, after a recounting of mistakes that were made, and some praise for his skills, he's getting promoted. "You are going to hear our operation to dismantle the Eagle's network. I am assigning you a rank and a designation as suits your new position. You no longer have a name. You will answer only to Cipher Nine."

X'tchol smiles. It's all very dramatic sounding, but doesn't make that much of a difference for him. He became known as "Agent", or as X'tchol to those who bothered somewhat more, due to Humans having difficulty pronouncing his full name.

Cipher Nine sounds like an upgrade, in the sense that it'll seem more impressive on classified documents.

As Keeper goes on this new position of his keeps sounding better and better, mostly to what Keeper describes as "Operational Independence". In practice it'll mean him getting his own ship, recruiting his own operatives, and being only connected to base by reporting, and receiving orders, from Watcher Two.

He's definitely recruiting Kaliyo, at least. They'll travel the galaxy and, somewhat violently, hate everything together for fun and profit.

"I'm looking forward to it," X'tchol comments, and for once feels like he actually has something to look forward to. "Any final instructions, sir? Or will that be all?".

"Be careful of these people, Cipher. Destroying the Dominator was no mean feat. Killing Darth Jadus was nearly unthinkable. But this is our job, do whatever is required. Good luck." And, having probably said everything he wanted, Keeper leaves for his office.

Probably to solve the problems that resulted from the current mess. Which is to say, to placate the Sith.

Kaliyo has already left to "get her stuff" and maybe pilfer some office supplies, so X'tchol is alone when Watcher Two comes up to him. She asks how he is. And it actually sounds sincere.

And he finds that he doesn't know what to tell her. He isn't sure he likes her, and she acts somewhat like a droid half the time, but maybe that's just her being Imperial.

He decides to give her a chance. He can always conclude that he hates her again later. 

"Was going to ask you that." He says. It seems like an appropriate enough way to dodge her question. He might want to give her a chance, but he isn't about to pour out his heart to her yet.

"I appreciate the concern. Honestly, I don't know. The situation with the Dominator shook me." She actually looks him in the eyes for once. Brave Human. She also looks sad, and unsure. It isn't a good look on her. "How is that I can torture a colleague without feeling a thing, but a thousand dead strangers is too much to handle?".

X'tchol wants to remark that most of Intelligence's employees probably deserve a bit of torture. But if he's being honest he can sympathize. She's an analyst, and therefore not used to somebody who dies actually being "somebody".

They're either horrible dissidents, who deserve it for their treacherous actions , or just data on a spreadsheet.

He tells her as much, and adds that she should probably rest and bit, since she'll feel better when she's not as tired. Or, he mentally corrects himself, not so much "better" as "more emotionally stable", but he still thinks he got the point across.

"I suppose. Thank you. Anyway, I shouldn't bother you with this. I've been monitoring you far too long. I'm starting to think of you are a friend instead of our alien agent." She says. Probably wanting to sound friendly, actually.

It's not coming across as such, not for him at least, and X'tchol finds whatever sympathy he had for her a moment ago evaporating.

Of course, Imperials don't consider aliens anything other than cannon fodder. And to think he'd started to think he could have a pleasant, companionable professional relationship with someone besides Kaliyo. 

Even if he says something she probably won't understand his problem. And he's reporting to her now, and therefore should avoid ruining their relationship. "I do suppose having to end up torturing a friend, rather than a colleague, won't be much fun. Still, take care of yourself?".

Then he leaves. He can hear her replying something along the lines of "You too". She'll probably never understand what she said wrong, and he won't bother enlightening her either.

And, as if X'tchol's mood wasn't ruined enough, when he's at the spaceport, waiting for Kaliyo, it finally hits him. How very deeply involved in this mess he actually is. Sure took him long.

When he'd met with Jadus, the Sith made it sound like he's planning something. Something that others in government wouldn't be happy about. And X'tchol even supposedly agreed to help with it somehow.

It'd make sense for somebody to find out, and decide to off Jadus.

He's being sent on a mission that won't lead anywhere. He is just going to chase ghosts. Even if he finds out who's really responsible they're probably so important he would have to keep quiet about it.

But maybe that's not so bad. The less he'll be on Dromund Kaas the less chance there is anyone will find out he was privy to Jadus's plan, and therefore also guilty.

And he'll also know to not dig too deep. Only reach the conclusions they want him to. The Eagle is probably a scapegoat, the one everything will be blamed on to keep the real story under wraps.

But, still, he should get off the planet as soon as possible.

At least the ship he was promised is very nice. Intelligence didn't cut corners here. It has wooden floors, purple decorative LED lightning, a bar. The white leather couches look comfortable too.

They are comfortable. X'tchol decides as he collapses on one of them, probably smearing blood all over it. At least the weird droid that came with the ship will have something to do now.

The doors open again. Probably Kaliyo. "Don't steal the ship." He mumbles in her general direction, before adding, "And get us into orbit". The farther away from Dromund Kaas they'll be the lower their chance of getting offed too, probably.

He can hear her heading in the direction of the bar.

Hopefully she heard him. Also, hopefully he won't have any dreams about his former squad for once. He does not need any reminders of his past "heroics" after the last few days.


	4. Chapter 4

The sight he wakes up to is Kaliyo's, thankfully clothed, midriff. She's looking down at him while holding a can of something which he can safely assume is alcohol.

"Nice digs. Think you got a message on that thing." She greets him, gesturing towards the holoprojector in the middle of what he's decided to think of as the ship's "living room".

There are no windows here, so X'tchol is unable to assess how long he slept, and whether Kaliyo actually got them off planet. Probably longer then Headquarters would've wanted, and no. "How long did I sleep?" He asks her.

It's not that he cares about what they think. But if somebody called and got the privilege of talking to Kaliyo, while X'tchol could be seen sleeping in the background, some damage control is probably required.

"Not long enough for me to disassemble the droid, or get rid of all the cameras and stuff your bosses hung around here, if you're worried." Kaliyo replies, mock saluting him with her can before taking a sip.

He snorts. "You can disassemble the droid after he cleans the couch, unless you want to do it. And don't remove the stuff they'll notice being gone." He actually somewhat likes her even when not very tired, which is worrying.

He can't trust her. He can't trust anyone, for that matter, but especially her. She's smart, and that means she'll betray him eventually.

Still, he should enjoy flying around the galaxy and murdering people with her while it lasts. Or something along those lines. At least that's what X'tchol assumes they'll spend most of their time doing. He stands up.

The couch definitely needs cleaning. It's covered in many kinds of dirt and blood. Hopefully the droid knows how to get stains out of white leather.

"I'm going to shower. Yell really loudly if you need me." He informs Kaliyo. She plops down on the less bloody and more simply dirty part of the couch, and waves the can around in a gesture that X'tchol takes as acknowledgment.

Showering after two days is a great feeling. Doesn't hurt that the ship seems to have hot water. X'tchol thinks about everything, in general, but mostly about the events of the last few days.

He got promoted. He should be happy, probably, proud of getting a promotion so soon. He's off mostly on his own too, which means that they trust him. He doesn't feel happy.

He thinks about all of this while staring at his reflection in the foggy mirror. He isn't used to the scars yet. They aren't this bad, considering. Don't even reach his right eye.

They said he could have potentially lost both eyes, and then he would've needed cybernetic replacement. 

His hair is a mess of blue tangles. He looks tired. Which is unsurprising really. He wasn't sure he'll last this long, but he did. It feels too convenient.

Everything went horribly wrong, and not only he wasn't blamed for it, he received a promotion. Maybe this in how whoever killed Jadus decided to get rid of him, and the ship is about to malfunction horribly once they're far away enough from Imperial space. 

Then again, maybe he's just being paranoid. For now his career is going pretty well, he should try and enjoy it.

At least, that's what he thinks until listening to the message. Jadus, may he rest in peace, savor the Sith afterlife and whatnot, had a daughter. That would be surprising information all by itself, but turns out that this daughter is also his only apprentice.

Which, according to Sith law, makes her his heir. And she wants to see him.

The daughter, Darth Zhorrid, ends up being a definite downgrade compared to her father. Makes her "name/title" ironic, in a hindsight. The first things she does when they meet is order her bodyguards to murder him, and probably Kaliyo.

It's not that they're hard to deal with. It's more the fact that ordering somebody to kill your visitors doesn't really improve said visitor's opinion of you. And this is why X'tchol finds himself staring at Zhorrid dumbfoundedly,"You tried to kill me."

Declaring the obvious, but he's unsure what else to say. If she gets aggressive he might actually be able to take her. Unlike her father she doesn't have an oppressive and ominous aura signaling her power to all.

But doing so on a planet swarming with Sith would probably be a bad idea. They usually seem to dislike the idea that somebody who does not command powerful force magics can still, theoretically, kill them.

And, despite having what he thinks is an appropriate amount of faith in his skills, X'tchol doubts he can win against all of Korriban's Sith Academy combined.

"I didn't try to kill you. I had my servants try to kill you." Zhorrid explains, also declaring the obvious.

X'tchol appreciates the Hutt-like logic of this reasoning, but is unsure whether her intention is to make him more or less angry at her. "I sensed your feelings during the fight, I think you will do nicely tracking these terrorists. But are you really sure this "Eagle" killed the mighty Darth Jadus?"

X'tchol resists pointing out that Jadus wasn't killed by the Eagle himself, and maybe not even by whatever idealistic recruit they sneaked on the ship to blow it up, but most likely by the vacuum of space.

He doubts even very powerful force users can breathe out there.

Besides, the Eagle is probably funded by some politicians. It's wouldn't be a stretch to assume he's funded by Zhorrid herself. It would make sense for her to want to get rid of him, being the one set to inherit his seat on the Dark Council, and he somehow can't imagine Jadus as a loving parent. 

And this means X'tchol should be very, very careful now. Maybe she's smarter than she looks, and summoned him here to check whether he was somehow tied to her father's plans.

"It seems likely." He says, hoping that it's a diplomatic enough reply.

And she, of course, as Imperials seem to be prone to do, launches into a tirade. Must be something in the water. This one is about how mighty and great Jadus was.

X'tchol supposes he really was a powerful individual, and fairly sane for a Sith, but he wasn't immortal. Powerful and ambitious individuals eventually earn themselves many enemies, who sometimes end up killing them.

"Chase after the terrorists, save the lives of your Imperial friends. But if you learn who's really responsible come to me. I've earned my place on the Dark Council, and I won't share my father's fate. Dismissed." She concludes.

X'tchol doesn't waste any time dismissing himself from her office. He's sure this isn't the last he's seen of her, and he doesn't look forward to their next meeting. She doesn't look like she'll react well to perceived lack of progress on his part. And, even if he learns the truth, it will be the kind that shouldn't be shared with anyone.

"I think I preferred Jadus." He tells Kaliyo, once they're far away enough to go, hopefully, unheard. The exit the Sith academy.

Compared to the cool darkness of the building the desert outside seems surreal, too bright and hot. There are Sith adepts wandering around, and further down some of them are fighting some sort of giant sand worms.

It's actually some kind of Sith school. Yet probably hardly a bastion of higher learning. "Let's get to the ship before somebody arrests us for breathing too loudly, or my skin starts peeling off." He mutters.

"Will it actually do that?" Kaliyo sounds genuinely excited. X'tchol is in fact fairly sure it's not about to happen, he merely feels like it might. Still, he decides to not disappoint. "Absolutely. Then I'll melt. You'll need to gather my remains into a bucket, and place them in an industrial freezer until I reform."

"Yea Right. And I'll become a Sith lord after being stuck here long enough." They're slowly making their way towards the shuttle. There are mountains on both sides of the road. If you look further below, into the bottom of the canyon, there are some bigger sand worms wriggling around in the ruins, diving into the sand only to reappear again somewhere else.

The ones near the Academy must be baby sand worms. They probably grow so large due to all the apprentices they get to eat. Maybe even gain some force powers from them. Who knows.

"That wouldn't be surprising. You're about eighty percent Sith lord already, with your complete lack of shame and regard for all living, you just lack the force magic." X'tchol tells her.

She seems pleased by his assessment of her potential. "Want to rob some tombs?"

He sighs, and resist the urge to rolls his eyes. The artifacts from the Dark Temple must have fetched a high price on the holonet. He should demand his cut. "Why is always about criminal activity with you?" He questions.

Not her. More the universe in general.

But if he's to be honest with himself the idea isn't actually so bad. It isn't as if he deeply respects the Sith Order or something. And if they end up being questioned about the disappearance of some priceless historical artifacts he can always blame Kaliyo.

Or say that the giant worms must've eaten them. Yes, that's a great excuse, actually. 

#

The first planet Headquarters gently suggests he head to, after his detour for Korriban, Balmorra, is fairly bland as far as planets go. A mid-sized industrial planet, one that hasn't been occupied by the Empire long, and therefore hasn't had time to accept its fate.

The atmosphere here is very different from the distinct unsavoriness of Hutta, or the constant oppressive feeling and pervasive dampness of Dromund Kaas.

Balmorra is full of weapon factories, weapons, and people using said weapons in various ways. That's probably why the Empire wants it pacified so much. The methods of using said weapons seem to vary in their creativity, but their goal seems to be the same.

X'tchol does think he noticed some very large iridescent lizards and yellow flowers on a grassy hill at some point. Maybe he just imagined it. He's unsure he's completely finished processing his lovely, very informative meeting with Zhorrid yet.

And he hit his head pretty hard when one of the sand worms sent him flying into the statue of some ancient Sith leader. One that happened to be very full of sharp edges. He shouldn't have agreed to go tomb robbing with Kaliyo.

At least he got a glowing red datacron out of that adventure. It'll make a nice paperweight and night light. 

The hill with the lizards was probably a minefield anyway. As all unsettled areas on Balmorra seem to be. It ends up being awfully inconvenient sometimes. Like when you have to somehow get to the rebel base unnoticed by Imperial forces, since you're pretending to be one of those rebels, and therefore go through said fields.

X'tchol had met with the head of the bureau right after his arrival planet-side. At first, the fact that the Human had resorted to day drinking, and the higher ups decided to ignore it, was surprising.

But after some time here X'tchol can somewhat understand. Headquarters would need to appoint new bureau heads every few months if this one calls it quits.

The situation on the planet is a mess. And that's being gentle.

Chemish, the rebel leader, actually seems competent enough. But she's desperate. As long as he doesn't do anything to deliberately make her suspect him she'll believe what he says. She wants to, and needs to.

It's obvious that this cell lacks people who know what they're doing.

He hopes Sanju, the local agent they're stuck working with, won't do anything to blow their cover. The kid is naive. The wrong kind of naive.

Not the kind that learns at some point, but the kind that eventually gets shot in the back for being nice. X'tchol shakes his head. He honestly wonders how did this Sanju managed to get through field training when he makes suggestions like the one about sabotaging the explosive cores.

Kaliyo actually expresses interest, "Kind of cute, isn't he? Kind of stupid too. If he had money he'd be perfect." X'tchol rolls his eyes, and suggests that she go for it.

Seeing the poor kid fend off her advances will at least be kind of amusing, since he imagines Kaliyo can be quite intimidating once she gets going. He considers offering to join in, but decides against it.

She might actually take him up on that offer, and that would be awkward.

He wipes what seems to be tears from his cheek. He isn't crying about his upcoming loss of Kaliyo to Sanju, unlike what she's very cheerfully suggesting. His eyes have been itching since he out in the damn lenses, and dust, which the abandoned factory they're in has a wealth of, seems to make it worse.

It isn't like he can take them out after Chemish had seen him wearing them. The sudden change of eye color would raise suspicion. They make his eyes look gold, and give him a pretty convincing visible pupil. According to the person outfitting him, it's meant to make him resemble another blue- skinned humanoid species, one more common in Republic space.

Pantoran, if he remembers correctly.

They also have a pretty convenient targeting HUD built in, which makes their existence somewhat more bearable. But, still, no matter how supposedly necessary and useful those things are, they're impossibly uncomfortable.

Once he's not undercover he's getting them modified. Or "accidentally losing" them somewhere.

#

The sky here is always gray during the day. Probably smog from all the factories. During the evening it's sometimes, like today, possible to see some oranges through all the gray.

It's quiet now, both sides seemingly done fighting for today. It makes the plains around them seem peaceful. X'tchol wonder how many died here today, from both sides. It's an odd thing to think about.

Pointless, too. Many people would be killed later today due to his decisions too. Imperial sympathizers. He turned their names in. The rebels will probably descend on their homes once it gets fully dark.

He wonders how sorry he should feel for them. He doubts they supported the Empire due to any real belief in its greatness. They were probably offered business opportunities, lucrative contracts.

Or worse, decided to support the Empire due to personal opinions about Human superiority.

He snorts at that thought. If they did, they're about to be very surprised. In the great Empire just being Human isn't enough. You need to have to force too, or barring that a good relationship with some important Sith.

The contacts are moving against his eyeballs. And making his eyes itch. He still can't get used to the damn things. They make him want to claw his eyes out. He's definitely misplacing them at some point.

He wants to be done with this mission in general. Sanju was an idiot, who signed his own death warrant. An idiot who didn't understand the necessity of sacrificing something, or somebody in this case, to achieve your goals.

X'tchol understands, logically, that he has no reason to feel bad for letting Chemish shoot him, and doing nothing. And then having to stare at the idiot, lying glassy eyed, in a pool of his own blood.

He could've saved him. Maybe. It just wasn't worth the risk. Or the effort. It isn't as if somebody will bother helping him if he screws up.

Except maybe idiots like Sanju.

He's sitting with Kaliyo on top of a small hill, one that's a safe distance from the Imperial camp, just in case Chemish sent someone to trail them after Sanju's "betrayal". They're leaning against his speeder.

Kaliyo actually dragged him here after they left with their new orders, claiming that she wanted to talk. It seems like whatever the talk was going to be about was serious enough, since she even managed to procure some contraband alcohol.

Probably curtsy some local "friends" of hers.

She charitably offers him some, but X'tchol has to decline. The distinctly medicinal smell emanating from the open flask is pretty off-putting. More for her, he supposes.

"You said you wanted to talk." He reminds her after a few more minutes of mutual silence.

"What? Yeah, sorry." Kaliyo shrugs. She seems lost, and somewhat sad. It's very unlike her, and therefore very suspicious, "Had no idea what I was gonna say, sorry. Been distracted, thinking about home."

X'tchol think about home sometimes too, somewhere between all the running around and shooting people who present a threat to the mighty and great Empire. Usually at night.

He wonders if he'll ever get to see Csilla again. Technically, it wouldn't be such a tragedy if the doesn't. His only family, his sister, doesn't really like him anyway. And if he misses the climate he can just visit Hoth.

But he isn't about to expose his soft and squishy feelings to Kaliyo, of all people, especially not when he's probably a target of some practical joke. So he laughs, and makes sure his tone sounds sufficiently condescending when speaking, "You miss your family and a cozy bed?".

She's a good actress, he'll give her this much. Fakes being hurt very convincingly. "Said I was thinking, didn't say I missed it. Life was miserable of Rattatak. Backwards people living in caves, big on tribal blood feuds. Almost got stoned to death when I was twelve. That's when I knew I had to get out."

X'tchol plays along, asks her about her tragic childhood, and gets to hear a wonderful sob-story about a probably imaginary friend that taught her to shoot.

It'd be very sad, and somewhat sweet, if any of it was true. Which it probably isn't. Kaliyo doesn't seem like the type to air out her sad past for all. Understandable. X'tchol isn't either.

Better not to give somebody information they can use against you later.

"And I'm the last surviving member of a noble house, back on Csilla. I saw my family slaughtered before me, but since I was a child I was offered the opportunity to make myself disappear, so to say." X'tchol offers, trying very hard to look and sound tragically serious, probably without much success, "Ended up in Intelligence after hacking into their accounts to buy myself a small planet in Hutt space."

He then snatches the flask Kaliyo is holding. Whatever it is, it's nasty and burns going down. Tastes like rubbing alcohol smells. Probably is diluted rubbing alcohol, to think about it.

"We can visit sometime, it has very impressive swamps." He concludes.

Kaliyo nodes sagely. "So you're royalty. That's why you have such a stick up your ass. Must be one long fancy stick."

She seemingly stops to think for a moment. and proceeds to steal her flask back. X'tchol doesn't bother attempting to reacquire it. "I married a Hutt once for insurance fraud. Slimy bastard."

"And how long did this marriage last?".

"Still officially married." She shrugs.

It'd strangely companionable. Watching the sunset, while inventing progressively more outlandish life stories for themselves. But Gray Star, or whatever the cell leader's was called, is waiting for them to kill him, which means they can't linger too long.

When they do get to him, and kill him, it's very anti-climatic, somehow. He tells X'tchol that he's a hypocrite, before attacking, letting so many of "his own" die just to get rid of one individual.

X'tchol doesn't deny this. It's not he'll have to face their grieving families now. Besides, they weren't really "his people". They were the Empire's. And he is not really Imperial, as all of the real Imperials can't resist pointing out at every opportunity, since he is not Human. 

Chemish will spend awhile wondering where the promising new recruit went before finding out the truth. She'll be angry when she does.

He informs the bureau leader of their success later, once they're back in Sobrik. The human seems relieved. He also seems to regret Sanju's death, but doesn't seem too surprised by it either.

You don't survive in this profession by being nice. That's what X'tchol makes sure to remind himself as they drag themselves back to the ship. He may be a hypocrite, but he's alive and getting paid relatively well.

At least Kaliyo will probably agree. Maybe that's why he begun begrudgingly liking her. Maybe one day she'll tell him who she actually is, and he'll tell her how he really ended up in Intelligence.

Or maybe not.


	5. Chapter 5

X'tchol figured that his success on Balmorra had already been reported to Headquarters, and said assumption turns out to be correct, since the next message he gets from them is a pre-recorded one directing him to Nar Shaddaa. 

He sets the ship to autopilot and spends the next few hours tinkering with the lenses, hoping to make them more tolerable to wear, before deciding to take a nap on the couch. When he wakes up his neck hurts, and he finds himself resolving to finally use the bed in his cabin next time. 

That's assuming Kaliyo hadn't claimed it by now, since this means he will need to banish her to the crew quarters first, and he doubts she’ll agree to be banished without some sufficiently detailed explanations about self-preservation, and how to tear off somebody's nails as slowly as possible.

Also, Headquarters is calling, which is probably what woke him up in the first place. 

When he feels awake enough to answer he gets greeted by a hologram of Watcher Two. It's of higher quality now then it was back on Balmorra. Better connection. He can actually see her facial expressions now. 

She begins a fairly long explanation of the situation, which can mostly be summarized as - Their terrorists are getting biotechnology from somewhere, specifically some sort of effective but ultimately lethal ability enhancing drug. That somewhere seems to be Nar Shaddaa. 

Most likely because it's possible to procure anything on this planet as long as you can pay for it, or steal it. And then the conversation takes an interesting turn. "I've contacted an asset who claims he can help locate them. He's a former operative of ours, effective in his day." Watcher Two is saying. She also mentions that this operative, a former colleague of hers, redesignated "Watcher X" after being deemed unstable, is currently, probably involuntarily, residing in some place called Shadow Town.

X'tchol finds himself once again dubiously impressed by Imperial Locale Names. Shadow Town, Dark Temple, they certainly don't kick around the bush. 

Still, he's curious. This Shadow Town is where he might've ended up if not for his "agreement" with Intelligence. So he asks, making his voice sound as neutral as possible. He can't let her see it's personal for him. She will surely add some notes about it to his file if he does. 

"It's where the Empire holds people who know too much. People we might need later. That's all I'm authorized to say." She answers, also mentioning that most of the inmates there have some kind of exploding motion tracking implants inside their skulls. This does not make it sound like a charming place, as if that wasn't clear enough from its name. 

X'tchol supposes that it's as good as he's going to get, and decides to not pursue this line of questioning any further. Watcher Two seems like she'd rather stop talking about it too, since she actually looks uncomfortable for once. He's unsure he wants to know more, anyway. He doesn't need more things to lose sleep over. 

Surprisingly enough she also warns him to not underestimate Watcher X. X'tchol appreciates the warning. Promises that he won't let himself get manipulated. He doesn't want to end up sharing a cell with this Watcher X, after all. 

#

Nar Shaddaa is neon lights and not very good, out of tune, cantina music. It's also probably his favorite planet from the ones he's seen so far. He and Kaliyo blend in well here. X'tchol even decides to forgo wearing the lenses after seeing a few Chiss bounty hunters around, as their existence means he won't imminently be pegged as "Empire" here.

They check out some weapons in the stalls on the promenade, and Kaliyo wonders about how to kill targets with one shot. He could tell her sniping is less about the shooting, and more about math equations and sitting still for long periods of time. It's very dull and boring, about the same level of excitement as analytics, but with more danger of dying.

That isn't the answer she probably wants.

"It's called aiming, an ancient art of my people. The main idea is that you look before you let go of the trigger." He says instead. She rolls her eyes.

#

This "Shadow Town" is depressing. And also very large, managing to occupy a whole ward of Nar Shaddaa. X'tchol avoids looking around too much.

The whole place seems strangely run down, but there are drones, cameras and watcher-towers on practically every corner, all of which seem shiny and well maintained. Prisoners are wandering around freely, some of them seem lucid enough, while others shamble unnaturally.

After all, Intelligence needs to procure subjects for experiments somewhere. And there's a potential wealth of them here. X'tchol can't avoid thinking about it. This is probably where the stuff he had seen in action on Dromund Kaas was developed and tested.

He's alone, Kaliyo wandered off, claiming that she needed to take care of some personal business. He misses her, mostly because he can't argue with her to distract himself. This is where he could've ended up. He can't stop thinking about it.

This is where he might still end up, eventually, if he missteps. He can't let this happen. Won't let this happen.

Watcher X himself seems pretty comfortable with his surroundings. Which are a ramshackle cell, containing a bed, what seems to be three broken bed-frames, and a lamp.

Must have gotten used to them. He's similar to Watcher Two in the lack of social skills, but unlike her seems completely aware of his shortcomings.

There are three cameras in the room, disguised as some sort of air vents, and it's probably bugged, so that somebody can listen in at all times. There's an unknown, but not unused, terminal in the hallway outside. X'tchol will check it out later, just in case. The Watcher is unarmed.

Which is good, since escape routes are scarce. It's either running back through the whole complex, or jumping out of the large window and hoping that there's a lower level down there. 

Neither is very convenient.

To his surprise, X'tchol finds himself preferring Watcher X over Watcher Two. But the bastard still makes his skin crawl. The Human seems to echo his thoughts, remarking that "This could be your future home."

For somebody who has a bomb inside his head he's pretty damn confident. X'tchol may feel an odd kinship with him, since they're both not working for Intelligence voluntarily, one more so than the other, but he doesn't trust him.

He has no reason to, since he doubts Watcher X actually has his best interests in mind. Apparently he's being helped since "the alternative is less pleasant". Some sort of "mental conditioning".

He wonders how common it is. How easy it is to apply. Maybe they already applied something like this to him, after the incident, back when they sewed his wounds shut while he was unconscious. If they did, he shouldn't give them a reason to use it. And if they didn't, he must avoid them deciding to apply it.

Maybe Watcher Two was right, and it's just baseless paranoia, he tells himself, before remembering the drug he used on Dromund Kaas again. Who knows what Intelligence can or can't do to somebody.

He always had a tendency to overthink things. But who knows.

And, somehow, this is how and why he ends up lying on a metal table, fully aware of the metal discs Watcher X is inserting into his spine. The local anesthetic does a fairly good job of dulling the pain, and brings it down to tolerable levels, but the feeling of things moving around where they normally shouldn't is still unpleasant.

X'tchol is positive the bastard takes his time doing it, just to torture him a bit, let out his anger at Intelligence. He can't even complain. Would've done the same in his position.

It's better than being out cold. Who knows what undesired upgrades he might wake up to if he lets someone operate on him while he’s unaware. Especially after what he's been told. Watcher X might simply be paranoid, but there may be some truth there.

Truth that Intelligence probably doesn't want him to know.

Kaliyo returns at some point during it. If she's surprised to see him half naked and bleeding on a table she doesn't show it. They chat a bit, she asks for his help rescuing a friend, the one that taught her to shoot.

The one she told him about on Balmorra. He honestly thought this friend wasn't real, and he isn't sure she still is. Maybe it's just Kaliyo's excuse to rope him into blowing up some gang shipyards or whatever. 

He agrees anyway, probably because he's an idiot, and isn't thinking clearly.

Then Watcher X pulls on something, and X'tchol sees black for a few moments. He might have screamed. Kaliyo bursts out laughing. When he can move again he shows them both an extremely rude hand gesture, one that's often used in Hutt space, and which he learned from Kaliyo.

They're unimpressed. And can go screw themselves, or eachother. He doesn't care.

Approximately ten more painful minutes later X'tchol is officially the owner of a permanent holographic droid disguise, which probably won't get used more than once. Exactly what he's always dreamed of.

Maybe he'll use it to terrorize his colleagues by seemingly popping out of nowhere. That'd be appropriate enough, considering who said disguise was installed by.

Hopefully it contains nothing beyond what was promised.

#

The industrial ward is probably the least flashy place here, lacking all the garishly colorful, flashing advertisements that seem to be on every corner in other wards. Half of the products those signs advertise make no sense anyway.

Who needs an electric bagpipe. Or zero calorie, zero alcohol, purple beer. And… what seemed to be a golden Uxibeast statue? 

Sneaking into the terrorist's meeting while looking like a discontinued droid model is surreal, and oddly hilarious if you ignore the potential repercussions of the procedure. X'tchol can't help staring at his reflection in any smooth surface, and waggle his arms, which currently look like two metal hooks, around.

At least all the digging around in his insides wasn't for nothing. The thing is very convincing.

The meeting is in progress. They're talking to the Eagle. It's lovely to see him again, but less lovely to not be able to punch him, with all his "sacrifice for the cause" speeches. Uppity asshole. 

X'tchol waits patiently for the meeting to be over. It'll be a bad idea to expose himself right now and let the Eagle know that the cell has been compromised.

Better he finds out later, once the other cells don't receive their drug, and this cell goes dark. It won't be necessarily tied to Intelligence them. Who knows what gang chose to attack the mysterious building full of expensive medical equipment in their district.

Once the meeting is over somebody pipes up about the droid that shouldn't be there. About time.

And then they're dead. This is how all of X’tchol’s “infiltrations” usually end, ironically enough. The one who noticed him, a skinny human cyborg with many tattoos, is lying near his feet, bleeding out. As it also often happens too. There’s always the one person still alive.

He calls Watcher X, who points out that they should also make an effort to get rid of the infrastructure, and data within it, of the cell. It makes sense, and unfortunately the cyborg is their opportunity to do so. X'tchol just has to dig around in his head, in a rather literal sense, a bit.

"I don't want to do this." X'tchol isn't sure who he's telling this to. Himself, Watcher X, or the damn cyborg, who's begging him not to do this. He feels sick. His hands are shaking again. He wonders how come he can kill hordes of people when they're attacking him, but when they're looking at him, asking him to not do it, he hesitates. He can't trust the cyborg to not lie.

And if he fails he'll have to face both Zhorrid and Intelligence. Zhorrid might actually be better, she'll at least murder him in the end. Intelligence will keep him alive as long as they can use him for something.

Something he doubts he'll end up enjoying.

Kaliyo looks disgusted. She has the right to be. All the blood and brain matter coating his hands are warm. He's actually rifling through somebody's open skull right now. It's soft, warm, gelatinous. He has good reasons for it. He is sorry.

The cyborg is twitching. He's still alive while X'tchol attaches cables to the implant inside his head. His body spasms. The mouth is opening and closing silently. 

X'tchol shoots him later. Because he can't look at his bloodshot, terrified eyes. He is a coward.

He made his choice about seventeen months ago, now he must live with it. Which means doing what he needs to, in order to avoid things worse than dying. Maybe he should have died thirteen months ago, with all of his squad. Maybe that would've been better. 

But this doesn't matter anymore. He’d made his choice already. And Intelligence shouldn't know. "Instability" is not good. "Instability" is how you end in a place like Shadow Town.

X'tchol might feel something. Cipher Nine shouldn't care about anything. It's easier to think about it like this. The one with hands coated in brain matter is Cipher Nine.

The implant that was inside the cyborg's skull contains their information. The main hub is in another sector. They should destroy it.

But currently they're standing right outside the building. X'tchol finding himself retching whatever he's eaten since morning, which thankfully was mostly nothing, into a pile of trash on a street corner. Kaliyo doesn't offer any support, still giving him a disgusted look.

He doesn't blame her. She has reasons. And she’s a bad source of emotional support anyhow.

#

The terrorists are dead. Their network is gone. Everything went very smoothly, and that's what's worrying. X'tchol had, by now, taken to assuming that things always end up going wrong somehow, and if they seemingly don't, it just means that the situation is worse than he can possibly imagine.

And this turns out to be correct this time too.

Watcher X calls, congratulating them on their joint victory. And informing X'tchol that he's taken the liberty to escape during the brief blackout caused by blowing up half of network access. X'tchol doesn't doubt for a moment the escape was his goal from the start.

He's also being offered an alliance. Watcher X knows X'tchol will be asked to "take care of him", and promises him information in exchange for lying. For saying no escape ever happened, and all is well. It's tempting.

He could learn the things Intelligence doesn't want him to know. Could even learn about who Kaliyo actually is, which is something she is obviously scared of, considering her reaction to Watcher X implying that he knows.

Before he can decide if he wants to risk it, he gets a call from Watcher Two. Headquarters seem to have noticed his success already. They also seem to have noticed the momentary failure of Shadow Town's security. Crap.

Which means they suspect. X'tchol wants to lie. Say that Watcher X is still locked up. Give the bastard his chance at freedom. But the part of him he's decided to nickname Cipher Nine doesn't. Too risky. If they find out he lied there will be consequences. Bad ones. 

And they'll eventually notice a high profile prisoner being gone. 

So there’s no choice. He makes his way towards the spaceport. Hides in the higher levels on the hanger Watcher X is trying to escape from. Draws his rifle. Calculates the distance.

He shoots. And he regrets shooting, somewhat.

Watcher X could have noticed and killed him. Then the bastard could've escaped. Gone free. Hidden on some mid-rim world wanting to be Correlia and build a successful career as a corporate analyst, or something. But Cipher Nine wins, so he's dead now.

When he thinks about it, it seems almost everybody who works with him ends up dead. Either due to being killed by him, or due to him not intervening. But in this case being dead is probably better than being stuck in a cell forever, a bomb in your head, forced to help the people who put you there. At least, that what he prefers to think.

X'tchol notes that it's funny enough. He agreed to work for Intelligence to avoid this fate, but might still end up like this in a few more years. Watcher X tells him as much before keeling over. He actually stares at X'tchol's hiding spot when speaking. "No one ever gets out."

He should think that those were the ramblings of somebody insane. He shouldn't be scared of them. But he is. Watcher Two is happy when she finds out. It's the first time he's seen her happy. She claims it's for the best.

They, her and Watcher X, probably knew each other before, maybe even worked together. There's probably some story here, for his death to make the usually unemotional Watcher Two smile.

He doesn't want to think about any of this.

And, luckily, he doesn't have to, since he promised to help Kaliyo rescue her friend. Could be interesting to see somebody else calls Kaliyo a friend, since he and Kaliyo are probably equally horrible, and that's the only reason for them getting along.

The friend, Anspi'shel, pink Twi'lek, turns out to be real, and actually seems nice enough. That's when X'tchol begins suspecting something is wrong. No way in hell Kaliyo would decide to rescue somebody just because they're friends. 

Kaliyo promises her passage off-world. Which absolutely confirms that she isn't saying everything. He won't allow this friend on his ship, no matter how nice she is. Headquarters will hang him if they find out. He's sure Kaliyo is aware of this, and somehow doubts Kaliyo will be willing to pay for this "friend's" passage from her own pocket.

Once "Anspi" is off searching for her stuff Kaliyo confirms his suspicions. "There's a bounty on Anspi'shel. We saved her, we own her. now we're gonna sell her."

X'tchol should have expected something like this. This confirms his theory that even if he likes Kaliyo she's not to be trusted, ever. He shrugs, "Your friend, your choice".

It isn't as if he has any right to critique her decisions.

#

The air is full of colorful smoke. It's loud, but there's nobody out here. It's just voices. Carrying over.

X'tchol is drunk. He's mostly aware of it. He's also aware of seeing Kaliyo mix some pills into their bottle of cheap corn alcohol. He decides to not care. He's down for anything if it makes him not care.

They fought some people, and then got kicked out for said fighting. At least they won, probably. X'tchol is still holding a fake palm tree he used as a makeshift spear.

He looks up. here is a sign above them advertising low rate loans from some gang. It makes X'tchol laugh. Kaliyo looks up too, and also dissolves into mindless giggling over the sign.

"Aren't you happy we sold Anspi? If she stayed, I would've been jealous. Saw you looking at her." Kaliyo says suddenly.

They're standing in an alley outside the casino, leaning on waste disposal container, as one does after being kicked out. There are speeders in the sky. Blurred rows of light. "You probably fucked her at some point, so you don't really have the right." He informs her.

"Asshole. Right, but an asshole." But she doesn't sound too convinced.

She wraps her arm around his shoulders. It’s the first time she's ever touched him. They begin stumbling towards the spaceport together, almost bumping into various objects a couple times. 

#

When X'tchol wakes up the next morning, he, mostly, just regrets that Watcher X didn’t kill him yesterday. The light hurts. He seems to have swallowed a few rolls of sandpaper. The room still seems to be spinning. He can see a very bright pink, obviously fake and cheap, palm tree standing in the corner. 

He's half naked, and on the damn couch again. At this rate, his neck is going to turn into one huge piece of tissue, and he will be unable to turn his head anymore.

Somehow, he manages to flip into his back. The ceiling is the same as always, hopefully. It has built in lightning, so actually looking at it is beyond him now. He wants to perish, and hopes that Kaliyo didn't steal all of his money last night. 

But it's better, somehow.

At least he feels so absolutely terrible that he can't focus on anything else. Can't wonder about his, rather questionable, life decisions. So he closes his eyes, and focuses very hard on not throwing up, since getting to the bathroom, or at least close to some suitable container, seems like an impossible task. 

No more drinking with Kaliyo, ever. That's what he tells himself, while being fully aware that it's a lie, meant to make him feel better at the moment. 

Approximately three hours later, when he's feeling somewhat more alive, rather than like a dried out corpse, and had cleaned his face from what was hopefully only blood, X'tchol unsteadily drags himself back to the so called living-room to report to Headquarters in a more official capacity than he did back at the spaceport at some point yesterday. 

Which turns out to be a huge mistake on his part. 

When he tries making a call he gets an automated message. His ship is on lockdown. A lockdown ordered by Zhorrid, of everybody possible. And one that makes it impossible to leave until he calls her. X'tchol now really, truly, regrets he wasn't killed yesterday, and also contemplates spending the rest of his life inside the ship. Expect life as a ship-hermit would probably be kind of hard, due to the limited air supply, and Zhorrid might decide to come see him in person if he decides to ignore her summons. 

He wants to spend his life in prison even less than locked on a ship. 

So he calls. A hologram of Zhorrid appears. She looks as slightly unkempt as she did the last time. "Cipher Nine. The last time we spoke, I called you to Korriban. Did you misunderstand what a privilege that audience was?" Zhorrid begins. X'tchol hopes that Sith can't read minds over holocom. They probably can't. He can't think of how it would work.

The light is still unpleasant but he tries to avoid squinting at it. And tries to stand as steadily and naturally as possible. This is bad. He's a colossal idiot. He is a waste of resources that shouldn't have been born.

He is replying something. He hopes he is avoiding offending her. Zhorrid might be a horribly unimpressive individual, but she has power that can be used to murder everybody underneath her in the hierarchy, legally. She clarifies that she is unhappy, since X'tchol didn't provide any new information. He didn't, because there was no new information to report about Jadus. They still know nothing.

In the end, he apologizes, just to hopefully get her off his back, and assures her that he reported everything back to Intelligence. He doesn't say it out loud, but she probably understands that she can go read the useless reports if she wants to. Or call and ask somebody to read them for her, if reading them herself is beneath her.

Half of what they say is the word "classified" in big red letters anyway.

Zhorrid still looks displeased, but she doesn't begin yelling at him, or threatening to have him hauled to her to be tortured to death. X'tchol hopes that this means she will leave him alone now, but of course she doesn't. There is some former adviser of her father's hiding on Nar Shaddaa, probably to be as far away from her as possible, and she wants X'tchol to bring him to her. 

Her wanting to this adviser brought to her so she can interrogate him is reasonable enough, considering what other requests somebody like her might have. She even knows where his hideout is already. He can definitely manage this. It might be a waste of time, but it's what her Lordship wants, so it's what he will do. 

She disconnects.

X'tchol collapses on the couch again. It seems she didn't notice him blankly staring at her forehead throughout their conversation, or maybe she did and thought he was just in awe of her majesty or something. Makes him, once again, be thankful for the way his eyes are, as they probably make blank staring less noticeable. The light is still too bright.

Kaliyo enters from the hallway. He is sure she stood there through all of his conversation with Zhorrid. The bitch. At least she doesn't seem to be feeling too well either. She's looking grayer than usual for sure.

"So... how'd it go with psychotic Sith chick?" She asks, supporting herself on the wall.

"We're going. To find some guy. Later" X'tchol mumbles. And then he grabs one of the cushions and places it on his head. He doesn't want to look at anything right now, especially at Kaliyo, since she's responsible for all of his current problems. The cushion is nice and smooth and heavy. "Go away." He adds. 

He can hear her flopping down next to him. He'd roll her down to the floor if he had more energy. She is a bad person who does not deserve the privilege of sharing a couch with him.


	6. Chapter 6

Jadus's adviser ends up not cooperating. So they stun him , which means they must drag him to the ship throughout half of Nar Shaddaa, while still suffering through the consequences of yesterday. Certainly a fun way to spend an afternoon.

X'tchol doesn't even bother glaring at Kaliyo when she steals the contents of the adviser's wallet. It might make him a bit less heavy. And will make her moan less about having to help with transporting him.

What's odd is the information on the adviser's computer. It’s turned on, and when X'tchol notices he can't resist snooping. The adviser was probably working on something before being rather rudely interrupted by them.

Schematics for the Dominator, the ship that went down with Jadus, from which it's clear all passenger quarters could be repurposed as prison cells.

Messages concerning some sort of project containing what seems to be organic technology, from what X'tchol understands. He can't really make heads or tails of the technical parts of this, but it seems like development on it has stopped midway through, anyhow.

It's all pretty strange, and seemingly unrelated to each other. But likely all somehow related to Jadus's plans, the ones he planned to involve X'tchol in eventually. And this is also why X'tchol decides that the best course of action is pretending he never stumbled upon any of this. And getting rid of it.

There could be something more there, something somehow implicating him.

He attaches an explosive probe to it, setting it to explode in fifty seconds or so. Once the black smoke clears he can see that the machine is reduced to a charred husk, even the floor gets singed a bit. Good.

Kaliyo looks at him, surprised, "What the fuck?"

"Screwing Zhorrid over. This adviser probably won't tell her anything, and if she decides to look through his files then.... well, she didn't want them before," X'tchol smiles. He's lying, of course, but hopefully she'll buy it. "And who knows what gang blew the place up."

"Bitch deserves it, I still feel like crap, and now we have to haul this fatso." She agrees, now looking contemplative, and intrigued, "We gotta make it more convincing, stick a few more probes around the place, gangs usually aren't careful about what they blow to shit."

"Should we put one on the support beam?" He suggests. He hopes that the excitement over getting to blow things up will distract her from considering his true motives. She smiles, as maniacally as she usually does, "Not a bad idea. It'll make half the roof collapse." 

The explosion is actually rather pectacular to witness. There is blue and red fire from the exploding electronics. It continues to burn against the dark-neon backdrop of the city, warm and smelling of metal and chemicals. They stand there with X'tchol holding the adviser until they can hear sirens in the distance. 

Later, when they're on the ship, and the adviser is locked in the cargo hold, Keeper calls. By now not unusual, but usually not a sign of anything good either.

He advises X'tchol to be careful with Zhorrid. As if X'tchol isn't aware he should be by now. She's probably terrorizing Intelligence like her dad used to, but it seems like they’re also finding her a downgrade compared to him. 

Still, Keeper is vague, only commenting that he wishes the circumstances were different. He also lets X'tchol know that Zhorrid relocated to Dromund Kaas, so that's where he should deliver their "cargo".

The flight doesn't take long. Most of it is spent in the living room with Kaliyo, drinking coffee and trying to mod one of their many dubiously acquired rifles into a portable flamethrower.

Their efforts are unsuccessful, and the rifle dies an honorable death. Which is to say, ends up permanently fused to the metal table. At least it fits in with the stolen palm tree, somehow. Nar Shaddaa aesthetic. They just need a few neon signs, and a golden Twi'lek dancer fountain. Or maybe that Uxibeast statue they saw an advert for on one of the floating kiosks. 

X'tchol sure hopes Intelligence won't want the ship back at some point in the future.

#

Zhorrid's office is not hard to find, it's her father's old office, after all. And as soon as they approach it, X'tchol understands that something has gone wrong. Incredibly wrong.

There is screaming. It echoes in the narrow hallway. The mild smell of scorched flesh. He can hear muffled voices from behind the door. He can't make out what they're saying. He exchanges looks with Kaliyo. She actually grins. It makes him hate her more than usual. She should open the door, if she's so confident and fearless. 

But he is technically her superior, and she will never do anything that might endanger her precious backside, so the dubious pleasure falls to him. The scene that greets him causes him to freeze in place. The person screaming is Keeper. There is lightning. This must be why metal is so common in Imperial furniture and architecture. Everything in the room seems to vibrate with each hit, the walls flashing purple. 

Zhorrid is saying something, obviously unhappy, while hitting X'tchol's superior with lightning once more. 

The smell of scorched flesh and fabric gets stronger. X'tchol meets Keeper's eyes, and sees something that can only be described as accusation there. And then he realizes it, remembering his conversation with Zhorrid. 

Kaliyo takes this moment to shove him forward into the room. He stumbles forward awkwardly, still somewhat unable to make his limbs obey. When they spoke, when he was so hungover he wasn't really able to filter what he was saying, he implied that he served somebody other than Zhorrid by suggesting she ask Headquarters for information. 

Which was a mistake. A mistake he isn't the one paying for, apparently. Zhorrid notices him. She is smiling, tells him that "your superior and I were just chatting.". X'tchol can feel his heart beating, like it's about to burst out of his chest. The air is thin.

He is thankful that he had forced Kaliyo to haul the adviser, since he would've surely dropped him, and by this incurred Zhorrid's wrath upon himself. But maybe that would've been better. This is hardly the first time others are suffering for his failures. He remembers his squad, their corpses, collapsed against the wall. Their blood freezing. The Imperial lieutenant staring down at him in vague disgust. This was more than a year ago. Why now of all times. Why did he manage to not think about it too much until now. 

"Sir, are you all right?" He begins. It also turns out to be the wrong thing to say. Keeper begins replying, but he is cut off by Zhorrid. She is yelling that Cipher should speak to her. According to her, she doesn't even remember exactly what X'tchol said to anger her, but he must have said something that sounded as if he thought something beside obeying her was actually important. 

This is the ruling class of the Empire. Insane Humans with magical powers. How quaint. And they must be obeyed.

And X'tchol does not speak. He is still, somehow, in the slowly freezing crashed ship. Cipher doesn't say anything either. Saying something could provoke her further, and induce another fit. This is what they warned him against when they repeated that Sith should be treated with respect. He did not heed the warning. Somebody else paid for it. 

He can't say he loves any of his coworkers, but to Keeper's credit he was always respectful, and never even pointed out that X'tchol wasn't Human, which X'tchol somewhat appreciated. He could easily imagine several worse options for a superior. 

Keeper says something to Zhorrid, and then turns to Cipher, remarking, rather dryly, "Good to see you alive. It's getting dangerous." It is clear what is being conveyed.

He seems surprisingly fine, overall, even as he struggles to stand. Cipher nods, slightly, so that Zhorrid won't notice, and makes a note that for a skinny old man Keeper is tough, and therefore, once again, not to be underestimated. And then Keeper begins limping out of the office. 

As soon as Keeper exits the office Zhorrid seems to completely forget that she was supposed to be angry. Cipher exchanges another look with Kaliyo, who shakes her head and raises an eyebrow. She looks impatient. She's probably tired of holding a heavy sack of meat.

He considers making her suffer a bit more, but decides against it, since she might say something that will piss Zhorrid off again, so he just politely asks where to put the advisor. Zhorrid actually sweeps some stuff on her desk so that they can deposit him there. She seems pleased now, promising some sort of reward and to call on him again. 

Frankly, Cipher can live his life without her ever remembering about him ever again. Would be glad to. Still, being hit by lightning is unlikely to be good for his health, so he decides to be quiet, and hope that she cannot read his mind. 

At least that proves that she seems to be actually, truly, insane. He thinks as they make their way to the ship. Visiting Headquarters is probably a bad idea right now.

On one hand it means that Zhorrid should be avoided at all cost, but it also proves that she didn't kill Jadus. She is an unstable, violent, overgrown child, which makes Cipher doubt her ability to actually formulate a plan and follow it. 

When he returns to the ship he finds that a pretty large sum of credits got transferred into his accounts. Probably the token of Zhorrid's appreciation.

He is finally safe. He is on the ship. Nobody can get him while he is here. They might see him on the cameras, but they can't actually harm him. And then X'tchol slides down to the floor. He can feel himself shaking. He cannot breathe. He realizes that he's the source of the strange gasping sounds he's hearing.

Kaliyo is quiet, she looks at him sitting there for awhile, expression unclear, and then departs, leaving him alone in the dim hallway. The only illumination are the purple LED strips in the seams between the walls and the ceiling. He stares at them.

The shaking stops, eventually. There is only strange, empty tiredness now. X'thcol is still sitting, staring at the light. It's purple, a gentle sort of purple, probably calibrated for his vision. He knew what he was signing up for. He isn't really any better than Zhorrid, maybe even worse. He is part of the system that enables her. 

Why is all of this happening. Why can't he just do his fucking job. This is what he wonders about as he exits into the living room. Kaliyo is sitting on the couch, with her legs on the coffee table. "Feel better?" She asks.

"Maybe." Is his reply. He sits down on the table, next to her legs and the rifle that's now a permanent part of it. She looks at him as if she's thinking about something. X'tchol shakes his head. He doubts she'd like him digging around in her head, and hopes she'll show him the same respect. She seems to understand.

"Great." She shrugs, and actually reaches out to pat his shoulder. 

They just sit there for awhile. Kaliyo tells him some stories about various strange jobs she had in the past. She is unbothered by him mostly nodding and making noncommittal sounds meant to signal his vague agreement with whatever she is saying. To think about, she might be happy about him listening to her without arguing or making comments about the inconsistencies in her stories for once. 

Watcher Two eventually calls, interrupting another completely fictional version of Kaliyo's life story . To her credit, she does not seem angry at X'tchol for his screw up concerning Zhorrid, and doesn't make any comments about the recent... additions, to the ship's furniture either. 

Says that the terrorists are moving around, increasing their activity, after the cells on Balmorra and Nar Shaddaa went dark. Which shouldn't be cause for complaint. Makes them easier to find. And the easier they are to find the faster this whole mess will be over. Which means less interaction with Zhorrid. Less chances to make her angry.

Also, their terror network seems to have some superweapons called "the Eradicators", which are meant to reduce the Empire into shambles and so on. The Eagle is planning to activate those things at some point, once they are ready. 

And then the remaining cells should cause chaos, pulverize the shambles of the Empire into dust, and erect a new amazing, and probably just as evil, government is its place. 

Considering X'tchol's theory that Jadus was probably killed by somebody in the Imperial government, this makes no sense.

Either the threats are moot, and he's to catch the Eagle before the weapons, if they even exist, are ready, or his theory is incorrect, and there are real reasons to be concerned. Which is an option he'd prefer not to think about.

That aside, he's going to Tatooine. From what he's told it's a desert planet, with pretty much nothing but sand, pretty criminals and a few farmers occupying it. And it's also where the terrorists are apparently training elite assassins. Pretty good choice actually, once you think about it a bit. A remote location with harsh climate conditions. 

If the information coming from "An anonymous source, claiming to be a former cell member", is true, at least. This source, whomever they are, seem to want to meet with him personally before providing more information. Could be a trap.

X'tchol's orders are to gain this source's trust, and then get rid of them, once the cell is gone. He wonders if they're aware of the fate that awaits them for doing the "right thing". Maybe, maybe not, this isn't something he should worry about. He doesn't need another useless mental breakdown. 

Tatooine turns out warm and desolate. “The ass end of the galaxy”, Kaliyo says as s soon as they exited the spaceport. The town, if it can be called that, in which they land consists of some ramshackle desert colored buildings. A lot of clotheslines over everything, too. The sun is very bright. Makes his eyes hurt.

Or maybe it's the sand that seems to get everywhere. It's even in the air. You can feel yourself breathing it in.

X’tchol ends up wrapping a scarf, which he probably "claimed" as a trophy at some point, around most of his face. It provides shade at least, but his field of view is limited to the fairly narrow hole in his scarf-wrap.

Their source is, probably justifiedly, paranoid. It turns out to be a Human woman. She has unwashed curly dark hair and circles under her eyes. She's scared of anything. Jumps at shadows. She's young, younger than him for sure, and he can hardly be called old. He prefers to think he's not old, at least. 

Her name is Mia. She almost kills him and Kaliyo when they first meet. 

Which is part of what makes Kaliyo immediately dislike her. The rest is the fact that she is surprisingly earnest, and somewhat vulnerable. 

Her story seems add to X'tchol's suspicions that whoever is founding the terror network is connected to the Empire. This Mia was a member of an anti-occupation group, and after the Empire got them she was offered "retraining" by some mysterious individuals.

Who, if you think about it a bit, most likely were somehow connected to the Empire. Why else would they bother offering a largely untrained dissident future opportunities, and take the risk of freeing her.

She's not such a good investment, logically speaking. 

But she's smart enough. This Mia. She seems to know what'll happen to her once she's done "helping", tells them as much. Even makes an attempt at running off before things reach their neutral conclusion, leaving a recorded message, before returning while they face off with the cell's leader. 

And then she turns to him, seemingly ready to accept her fate. She did the right thing. That should be what ends up killing her. Like it did the agent on Balmorra. They're standing over the dead body of the leader.

She says she likes him, that he's not what she expected from Intelligence. She's not as smart as she seemed, apparently. He reaches for the rifle. She smiles. His hand doesn't move. Her hair looks gold in the light. She's definitely younger than him. And humans live longer, usually. Slower metabolism. She probably has about sixty more years, or eighty, if she's lucky.

He tells her that she can go, warns that it won't be easy, that somebody will probably be sent after her, and wishes her luck. Then he watches her leave. Wonders why did he let her go.

It's still too warm. Even though it's evening. The sand seems to be glowing. Her figure blurs in the distance, in front of the setting sun. She'll be dead within a week, this much is clear. His dear colleagues are very good at finding people.

Still, X'tchol wants to give her a chance. Wants to think that she'll escape and build a new life for herself, somewhere. Cipher Nine would've killed her. Would've done the reasonable thing. The correct thing to do.

Letting her go is something that could reflect negatively on his record. Make them decide he's sentimental. And if he's sentimental he should be replaced eventually, or made to do whatever they want him to by any methods necessary. 

It's a strange thing to think about, now, especially in such way. But it's easier to think about them as two separate individuals, just to have somebody to blame for his actions besides himself. Be able to think that Cipher did something, rather than him.

They should head back to the ship for debriefing.

He wouldn't check what happened to her, later. It's better not to know for sure. He jokes, remarking to Kaliyo that Mira being gone must make her happy with how jealous she was. She shrugs, "You wouldn't have fucked her anyway."

"And why not?" He asks her. She shrugs. Doesn't reply. Her facial piercings make her hard to look at, since they reflect the sun, and that makes them glow brightly.

"Let's go, before you skin starts peeling." She says, after a while, and begins walking towards the sun too. He follows. It's hard to walk on sand. "I don't want to have to gather your liquid bits."

"Yes. I imagine the sand will make that difficult." X'tchol replies. He still feels somewhat off. Like the whole encounter in the middle of the desert was a strange dream of sorts. This happened a few times since Nar Shaddaa. 

#

He should call Headquarters for his official debriefing, and orders about his next destination. Which hopefully will be a colder one. With less sun. And sand. Because the skin around his eyes actually started peeling slightly, and he has sand in places where the should not be sand, ever. 

But he gets a call. On his personal comm. From an unknown number. Which he decides to answer, probably against his better judgment.

He never gave this number to anyone, from what he can remember. The only one who has it is Watcher Two, she used it before at least, and he didn't give it to her either.

She probably got it from his file or something.

And when he sees the caller, as a bluish little projection, he is incredibly surprised, somewhat scared and very very confused. It's a Sith. A red one, as in the species. Wearing fancy spiky Sith robes and all.

You can recognize Sith robes by the color scheme, and also by the fact that they seem awfully impractical, with the long hems, heavy shoulderplates, and far too much shiny ornamentation. 

He seems somehow familiar, the Sith, now that X'tchol thinks about it.

"Cipher Nine." He greets, sounding calm and respectful, very much unlike most of the Sith X'tcol had the pleasure of listening to so far.

"Who are you? How did you get this number?" X'tchol asks, still defensive. He's sure he saw this one, with all the beads and what seems to be feathers in his hair, before.

"My name is Eckanah. I believe we met before, on Dromund Kaas." The Sith, Eckanah, is actually answering, and doesn't seem offended by the questions at all. Now that he mentions it, X'tchol does seem to remember meeting a Sith and a Twi'lek who decimated half an army, back on Dromund Kaas, "You were in Grathan's compound, with the Twi'lek."

"That's correct. Her name is Vette. As for your number, I called Intelligence Headquarters. My master, Darth Baras, has frequent dealings with your employers, so after I mentioned his name the person I was speaking to agreed to provide your comm number."

X'tchol doesn't know who Darth Baras is, but if his name is enough to get Intelligence to give up confidential information he doesn't really want to. Hopefully this Baras isn't involved in this. This whole situation makes his brain hurt if he thinks about it too much.

Eckanah, probably seeing his complete and utter confusion, continues, "I'm not contacting you on behalf of my master, but rather due to wanting to request a personal favor."

Still confusing. This is a Sith. Sith don't politely request personal favors. They threaten to flay you alive until you agree to do whatever the fuck they want, and if you don't than they actually do so."I...see?" Is all X'tchol can manage.

"I'll be meeting with a certain individual, for what hopefully will be a peaceful negotiation, but might be a trap, on Hutta. I'd prefer to have somebody watching the compound in which the meeting will be held, to deal with any potential interruptions, or other issues that could arise." Eckanah explains.

X'tchol is still shocked by the remarkable civility and politeness on display. "None of my... companions particularly excel at stealth, and from what I've been led to believe you are familiar with Hutta's terrain."

"So, you want me to make sure you don't interrupted, and to deal with anybody who tries to bomb the compound, or something, if it turns out to be a trap?" X'tchol asks. Overall, the request and rationale behind it seem very reasonable. 

"Yes. I will provide a hopefully adequate financial compensation for your efforts." Eckanah answers, "You have the right to refuse, if your schedule doesn't allow for a detour to Hutta."

X'tchol spends a few moments more speechless. Honestly, he doesn't want to refuse, since he's actually being asked, rather then threatened into doing something by a Sith, for once. The small Eckanah hologram stares back at him.

"Send me the precise coordinates and time of this meeting, over an encrypted channel, and I'll send you the time and place where we'll meet beforehand to discuss our strategy ." He says, and only then remembers to add, "My Lord."

Eckanah nods. Probably acknowledgment. X'tchol nods back and disconnects the call. He is in fact, unsure if he should waste time on this when he's supposed to be very busy running after the remaining terror network, so that they won't have time to get their weapons ready, but this honestly sounds too interesting.

Definitely better then sitting and moping around. Thinking about dead people. About how absolutely everything might go wrong at every moment. He can always claim he was forced into this.

His comm pings, and he opens it it to see what he was promised. Coordinates that seem to indicate what he remembers to be a big field of mud, located right outside the town he visited on Hutta, and overrun with out of control droids and Evocaii rebels.

There were some abandoned warehouses out there, so it's safe to assume the meeting will be held in one of them, rather than in the middle of the field. 

The time is tomorrow evening, or the morning of the day after tomorrow, depending on which time zone and format you use. 

He writes back. Sends the coordinates of a quaint scheduled little patch of swamp where he once shot a Czerka executive, and requests that his "partners" arrive approximately an hour before the meeting. He then adds that they should bring the money, and he'll bring the "product". 

It gets sent using a series of fake numbers. If anybody stumbles upon it, it'll hopefully seem like a drug deal. Those are common on Hutta. 

This should be an interesting and educational experience. Or X'tchol might get killed by an enraged Sith. 

#

"You look happy." Kaliyo says when she sees him, "Zhorrid died?".

Such a turn of events would certainly make X'tchol very happy, but he has no such luck. He shakes his head, "Unfortunately, no."

She seats herself and begins cleaning one of her rifles, as well as changing it's plasma core. It definitely smells burnt. The whole procedure seems to cover their already mangled table in some burned dirt bits. "Watcher Two then?" She tries.

"Also no."

She stops cleaning the rifle, and stares at him for a couple of seconds. He'd never seen her concentrating this hard before. Maybe she's training her potential mind reading skills. He did tell her she could be decent Sith if she masters them. "You got a date?"

"Something like this." X'tchol decides against elaborating. He's unsure his engagement could be considered a date, but he doubts Kaliyo will agree to not come if he tells her what he'll actually be doing.

He's sure she misses Nem'ro and the swamps. But she seemed interested in Eckanah when they first saw him on Dromund Kaas. He appears very nice and level headed for a Sith, but who knows what'll happen if she angers him somehow. Like by flirting with him again.

"Cool. If you get some action maybe you'll stop moping around cause you're sorry for yourself." And she reaches forward to pat his head with her greasy fingers, "Then you'll be tolerable to be around."

X'tchol is deeply insulted. He has very good reasons to mop around, and Kaliyo doesn't have the right to critique them, since he's honestly the best partner Intelligence could have theoretically given her. Also she's getting grease in his hair, most likely on purpose.

"Say this again, and I'm requesting a new partner." He threatens, "And selling you back to Nem'ro."

She yawns, but removes her filthy hand, "Nah. You like me too much for that. I'm the best thing that happened to you in this job."

"You're currently ranking in the lower middle, right above filing expense reports, but below getting mangled by a giant sand worm ." X'tchol smirks at her. He likes her better than that, but he's not helping inflate her ego any further. It might explode if he does.

Now it's her turn to look somewhat offended.


	7. Chapter 7

Hutta is as wonderful and welcoming as ever. X'tchol is waiting in his patch of swamp. He's wearing a cloak with a deep hood to hide his face, just in case, so nobody will recognize the "legendary pirate" from six or seven months ago. 

He is sitting on the car, or what's left of it, that belonged to the Czerka executive he shot. It used to be a nice, an expensive model with an open roof and a flashy paint job. There's isn't much left of it besides the metal skeleton, most of it probably got taken by looters. 

The skeleton was likely left here only due to managing to sink pretty deep into the swamp already. It's covered in various kinds of moss, and a little bit of grass. 

Eckanah is late. Maybe he's having trouble finding the coordinates, or he changed his mind about his plan and neglected to inform X'tchol. He's a Sith, after all, even the nicest of them probably consider themselves above the common rabble.

Some droids are shambling about in the bushes. Either those that belonged to the Czerka Human, or ones from the nearby abandoned factory. The light that manages to pass through the trees seems green. It's surprising things still grow here, with all the pollution. 

Some places on Hutta can actually be kind of pretty, if you ignore the smell, and know you'll get to leave eventually. X'tchol decides.

And then he hears it. Loud footsteps through the plants, somewhere behind him. Incredibly loud. X’tchol is quite sure they can be heard as far as the mining camp. But Sith are unlikely to be the subtle, sneaky types. 

"I still believe this is a bad idea, My Lord, and unsure whether this ally of yours should be trusted," says an unfamiliar male voice. The accent is typical Imperial, most of Kaas City speaks like this. He also sounds displeased.

"Shut up, Quinn," This is likely Vette, since X'tchol can vaguely recognize the voice, "I met him, you know, he's from your spy agency. He seemed fine? His partner flirted with Eckanah. That was kind of funny." 

And then the three of them finally emerge from the bushes. There's Vette, a fairly short dark haired Human who's looking at everything around him with vague disgust, and Eckanah, currently wearing simpler robes then he did during their call.

Practical, considering the conditions here. A long fancy embroidered robe will cause problems, and become full of mud pretty quickly anyway. 

X'tchol waves. The Human seems to get even more annoyed. He's probably wondering why the strange swamp alien isn't groveling before his betters, or something. He's an Imperial, that's what they usually do.

They approach. Luckily, the ground around the car is mostly solid, so unless they're planning to stand there all day they won't sink. Hopefully. X'thol doesn't really want to be held responsible for the deeply idiotic accidental death of a Sith apprentice.

"Cipher Nine," Eckanah greets, and then inclines his head slightly. Honestly, actually being treated like a living creature worthy of respect is still weird, even somewhat uncomfortable. But he still remembers the lightning, and the screaming, and Zhorrid. Which means that he must still be careful, this one might seem nice, but he wants something. Who knows how he will act once Xtchol manages to offend him somehow. 

"My Lord," X'tchol returns the greeting, also inclining his head slightly. He probably looks ridiculous doing it while sitting, but he doesn't want to be downright disrespectful either, because the dark haired Human, Quinn, looks as he's one step away from deciding to take initiative and shooting X'tchol in the face. X'tchol is quite sure his face had been damaged enough already, and would therefore prefer to avoid having it disfigured any further. 

"I shall leave Vette with you. She has been informed which of the warehouses the meeting will be held in, and I trust that the two of you will be capable of finding a suitable location to observe from. My... accomplice will hopefully arrive later. She should be alone. If she is not, then you have permission to eliminate her allies. If someone attempts to enter after her, you also have permission to eliminate them." Eckanah says. "Quinn. You will come with me."

Quinn somehow puffs up even more in self importance. Vette is smiling at X'tchol, and X'tchol smiles back, trying his best to make it look... friendly? Unintimidating? Not murderous? She seems nice enough, and even if she didn't, she is still the better option out of her and Imperial with Long Sharp Stick Up His Ass. 

"Of Course, My Lord." X'tchol says. He doesn't know what else to say. He's just some slightly illegally hired help. He hasn't even been told who exactly Eckanah will be meeting. And he still doesn't want to somehow offend a Sith. 

Vette, however, seems to feel no such qualms. 

"Bye. We'll just hang out here. In the middle of the swampy swamp. Didn't want to listen to all the Jedi moaning anyway." She says, waving. And... well, she doesn't get mauled or anything. Quinn does look personally offended, but by now X'tchol is getting the feeling that his face just looks like that all the time. Eckanah just kind of shrugs. 

He's definitely the most reasonable Sith X'tchol had ever seen, and will ever see. He doesn't even threaten Vette with the loss of some non-essential limbs. 

"Let's find a good vantage point?" X'tchol offers as Eckanah and Quinn begin disappearing into the foliage again, leaving him alone with Vette. X'tchol is unsure what to make of her, having met her only once before, and rather briefly. Vette doesn't look terribly enthusiastic about the prospect of having to skulk around the swamp, now that Eckanah isn’t looking, but doesn't protest.

"So. Hi. I'm Vette. We're both blue. You are?" She asks as they begin creeping through the reedy trees jutting from the swamp, and towards the top of the hill overlooking the abandoned industrial area. 

"Cipher Nine." X'tchol replies, brushing some branches out of the way. Vette seems unimpressed. "And your name is?".

"Chrix'tchol'ishel." X'tchol replies. He knows he is not supposed to even think about having a name anymore, and that Intelligence will have him shot or stick him in Shadow Town if they find out he did. But he doubts Vette would be able to pronounce or remember it anyhow, and therefore sees no harm in giving it away. He also realizes, only after speaking, that this is the first time in almost two years he heard his name being spoken out loud. It feels strange. 

"Oh. Chrikh'tcholeshel. That's... long." Vette comments. As expected, she butchers the pronunciation, but it does sound like she truly made an effort to pronounce it correctly. That's... actually slightly touching. If Kaliyo ever finds out that's it's so easy to make X'tchol go all mushy she'll laugh so hard she suffocates. "You all got names this long?".

It takes X'tchol a moment to understand what she means. Apparently he's forgotten how to speak to someone without either party having all sorts of ulterior motives. This thought makes something twist inside his chest unpleasantly. This means it needs to be buried as deep as possible, right now. "Yes. This is a sacred tradition of our people. The longer the name, the more important someone is. I'm not very important."

"Wow. That must get so confusing." Vette muses. X'tchol is... unsure whether she actually took him seriously. They're right on top of the hill, and, turns out there are already some sandbags and large rocks laid out as cover up here. Not that unexpected. They're probably hardly the first, or the last, to need to observe some shadowy meetings from up here.

X'tchol crunches after noticing something scratched into one of the rocks, examining the scribble. It turns out to be a short poem. One that rather unskillfully mocks some Kelek's parentage, and implies that the only female companionship he'd ever acquire is a paid one. He only notices that Vette is reading too after looking up, and noticing her sitting next to him, "Kind of makes you feel sorry for this Kelek guy."

X'tchol can see Eckanah and Quinn make their way towards one of the abandoned warehouses down below. X'tchol watches them, also scanning the landscape for anyone else who might be observing. Everything seems clear. Vette... has somehow moved from being sorry for the Kelek guy for being immortalized in such a humiliating manner, to recounting some tale about how Eckanah successfully tamed a giant sand beast. According to Vette, this sand beast was some truly horrific giant crustacean, with a shell very full of sharp spikes, and several tiny creepy beady eyes. 

X'tchol filters out the rest, but surprisingly, finds that the chatter in itself does not annoy him. Vette seems like she simply enjoys speaking, and doesn’t really care whether she's being listened to. Also, she appears to genuinely like Eckanah, despite being, rather reasonably, slightly uneasy about the whole "he is technically a Sith" part. 

"So you are claiming that despite being a Sith, Lord Eckanah is actually a kind and gentle individual, who does not make a habit of murdering, torturing, or mutilating innocent bystanders?" X'tchol asks, interrupting Vette's confusing descriptions of the showdown between Ecknah and the sand beast. 

"Well, he does murder people sometimes. Often, actually. Like, pretty much every day. But usually they deserve it. And I think he tortured one guy once. A bit. But he glares at anyone who glares at me. That's sweet. Kind of. But also scary? And he gives me stuff he finds and thinks I might like? Basically, he's nice. Much nicer than Baras. Baras is creepy. I saw him liquefying some guy's brain once. Nasty." 

X'tchol nods in agreement. The more he hears about this Baras person, the less he wants to meet him. He sounds about as horrible as dear old Zhorrid.

A figure in a brown robe is heading in the direction of the warehouse where Eckanah is supposed to hold his meeting, wading through the mud. X'tchol pulls out his rifle. Begins calculating the distance. The air is still, so the wind won't be much of a problem, but visibility is bad due to the constantly present yellow smog.

"Wait!" Vette exclaims before X'tchol can pull the trigger. He turns to look at her. She is leaning on the adjacent rock, staring forward intently. "I'm pretty sure that's the girl Eckanah supposed to meet. So don't shoot her?". 

"Right." X'tchol mutters. 

"You forgot the instructions, didn't you? Aren't you some great spy ?" Vette looks... well, kind of relieved, but also disappointed. X'tchol groans, "I was thinking."

"Yeah. And also I guess you don't usually leave people alive, do you?" She asks. There's a slight bitterness to her voice. It makes X'tchol wonder how did she end up with Eckanah anyway. It might have been involuntary. Twi’leks… often get sold into slavery. 

"No. I mean yes? Kind of gets drilled into you during training. Leave no traitor alive, so no one may rise again and harm the glorious Empire. This kind of stuff." He says. That's actually true, except for the fact that almost no one who isn't born and raised Imperial begins believing any of that shit. "That's… a pile of crap, but does make you more predisposed to just shoot. Just in case someone who might take offence at your lack of patriotism finds out later."

Vette, surprisingly, laughs at the last part. She still looks bitter, but no longer at X'tchol. "Yeah. I guess."

And then she spends the next twenty minutes or so rambling about several topics, while X'tchol amuses himself by picking off any rouge droids that wander too close to the warehouse. There are more tales Eckanah's actually surprisingly heroic heroism when fighting some insane Jedi, but also some stories about what seems to be Vette's dubiously legal adventures before she met him. She doesn't sound as if she is lying about any of that, either, unlike someone X'tchol knows. 

This last thought kind of makes him want to ask her whether she met Kaliyo somewhere before, since it does sound like they used to run in the same circles at one point or another. 

He doesn't get the opportunity to, however, because Eckanah and Generic Stiff Imperial emerge from the storehouse, accompanied by two soldiers dragging some old disheveled looking man, and the figure from before. X'tchol can see that it's a young Human woman now that she isn't wearing a hood anymore.

#

Eckanah asks Vette to give the girl a tour of the ship, once all is said and done. Vette reacts with enthusiasm, which doesn’t appear to make the girl less nervous. Quinn get dismissed too, to his obvious displeasure.

And it's just the two of them. X'tchol isn't sure what to do, honestly, this whole experience was the most damn confusing thing in his life. Eckanah motions towards the respectable, high-class establishment, known as the Poison Pit Cantina.

They enter, sit down at the bar, and Eckanah orders something for both of them. When it arrives X'tchol finds a mug of something shoved into his hand. Neither of them says anything.

"Everything went according to plan. So it seems I had no need of your services." Eckanah says to break the silence. And X'tchol finds himself relaxing slightly. It seems he’s not the only one finding the situation awkward. 

"It's fine, my Lord, I got to revisit Hutta. It's still as terrible as it used to be,"He says. It's refreshing to talk to somebody who isn't Kaliyo, for a change. Even if that someone is a Sith. "I did shoot some droids that wandered too close. And had company to entertain me."

Eckanah nods, and takes a sip from his drink. He then makes a vaguely displeased face at said drink. Probably not used to the sort of swill they serve in places like this, being Imperial aristocracy and all. 

He certainly looks out of place in a bar on Hutta. With his long red hair and gold jewelry. It glitters in the light, matches his eyes, and somehow fits in with the frilly spurs on the sides of his face. But the locals are too terrified for any comments. The robes give him up. Probably afraid he'll slice them into ribbons, and then drink their blood, or whatever they think Sith do to people.

And which he might actually do, if they annoy him. He's still a Sith after all. He seems remarkably level-headed for a Sith, but he must have survived the academy, where he had to be around people like Zhorrid. That means he's not as nice as he seems.

It's getting harder not to smile. And smiling might displease Eckanah. "It gets better the more you drink." He explains. 

Eckanah looks at him, now with obvious suspicion. Hopefully X'tchol wasn't too forward. Eckanah may be decent, but he has the force. He can randomly murder people. And he's strong, since he has the aura thing strong Sith seem to have.

His is different than Jadus's was, it's less oppressive, but somehow more volatile. Unlike Jadus's it doesn't seem to induce slight terror, but still makes one feel unsettled. 

He's also awkward, in the way people who aren't used to talking to others in an unofficial capacity are. Makes sense, everybody probably begins groveling the moment he approaches, and Sith probably don't talk to eachother much in general.

Too busy plotting murders and their rise in the hierarchy.

"So, My Lord, somehow, I'm guessing you didn't drag me here just to talk." X'tchol comments. It's true enough, why else would Eckanah send his entourage away.

"Yes. I think some sort of future alliance might be beneficial to us both. You have proven you are discreet, and can follow orders. My master is a fat old man, but he is no fool, and understands that me suppressing him is inevitable. This means he will attempt to prevent that by removing me." So, Eckanah suspects his master, this Baras, might want to get rid of him soon. Makes sense, since from what X'tchol knows the only way up in the Sith is if the person occupying your desired position dies, or even better, is killed by you.

And that does make getting rid of overly ambitious apprentices a good idea. 

"Should this happen, I'll be unable to request support from any official government bodies, as they are generally reluctant to involve themselves in Sith affairs, and will be much more likely to support my master, should they get involved after all." Eckanah stops to take another sip from the mug. He seems thoughtful, "It does get more tolerable. Anyhow, should this happen I'll have need of allies from outside the Sith."

"And you want me to be those allies?" Now X'tchol can't help smiling. If Eckanah survives and rises up in the Sith, being on his good side will be great for X'tchol career and continued survival in general, considering the fact that X'tchol is deep enough in Sith politics already.

And if he doesn't, X'tchol won't lose that much, at least as far as nobody finds out about their agreement. Because if someone does X’tchol… well, he’d get to enjoy a few long hours “talking” to Baras.

Eckanah nods, and brushes a couple of red strands off his face.

X'tchol must be slightly drunk, and not feeling quite like himself after this rather strange adventure, but the Sith is actually kind of good looking, and the way large predators are. Sleek, full of pointy bits, dangerous. He could probably very easily kill X'tchol if he wanted to, but since he doesn't actually seem about to do it, thinking about it doesn't actually help matters.

Shit. Of all possible options, the one he thinks about is the one most likely to murder him horribly for expressing interest. Just his luck.

“I may be interested. But what precisely will I get out of such an agreement, My Lord?” X’tchol asks. He certainly understands some of the potential benefits of having a big scary Sith on his side, but wants to test how much Eckanah is willing to offer.

“You will have the gratitude of a Sith. But I doubt that is sufficient for you.” Eckanah says. “You will also be paid. And should I outlive my master, you may find yourself receiving an offer for much better employment. I am not to share this information, but I have been given some of your mission dossiers along with your comm number. Your talents are being wasted in Intelligence.”

Eckanah pauses to take another sip. X’tchol stares, and quite seriously thinks about going outside and just shooting himself. Why do all the Sith like him so much? The only possible explanation, for now, is that X’tchol somehow got himself cursed, or blessed, by letting Kaliyo steal some stuff from the Dark Temple. 

“I have learned from my master that subordinates who are not Sith still have their uses. From my understanding, Intelligence is currently under the patronage of Darth Zhorrid, and while the Dark Council will likely have her removed eventually, they currently have more important matters to concern themselves with. Zhorrid is notoriously difficult.” Eckanah continues. X’tchol actually finds himself… happy that it seems like even the rest of the Sith consider Zhorrid a problem. Eckanah nods, “And I can promise you that I am a much more reasonable superior than she is. However, I will not force you. You are free to refuse.” 

"Fine, My Lord, since you are apparently not forcing me into it, consider me convinced. We have an agreement." X'tchol says. He understands that agreement is the only choice, but for once doesn’t really want to refuse. Eckanah hadn’t demanded that X’tchol grovel yet, he certainly seems better than Zhorrid, and even prefers to offer an illusion of choice. "I think you know how to contact me. And I know that I know how to contact you. Only message or call over encrypted channels, since your master might be monitoring all your calls, and only if necessary." 

"I see. Thank you, Cipher Nine. I look forward to our cooperation, and will transfer the payment for your assistance today to your accounts as soon as I get offworld."

"Do it through a series of sham ones. It will make the transfer more difficult to trace. Also, you can go for just Cipher," He finds himself saying. He's definitely stupid, and deserves to be killed in the dumbest way possible.

"Cipher?" Eckanah sounds as he's wondering what sort of name is that. X'tchol wants to laugh, but doesn't, to not come across as disrespectful, "Chrix'tchol'ishel, if you want the actual name. No offence meant, My Lord, but you shouldn't try to pronounce it, you probably can't."

Eckanah just stares at him, seemingly mystified. Probably wonders why would somebody give their child a name that for him sounds like a long collection of meaningless syllables. 

And then he smiles. Exposing two rows of entirely too sharp teeth, and officially stealing the trophy for "most charmingly terrifying smile" from Kaliyo. "Cipher, then."

X'tchol wonder why he deserves all of this in his life. He probably had too little normal interaction with anybody who's not Kaliyo for almost a year, so he's entirely too awed by the first person treating him with what can be called respect.

It'll hopefully pass soon enough. He should just get used to talking to people who are not Kaliyo or his coworkers. Which is going to be hard, since there are mostly almost none around. 

#

"So how was that dick?" Is the first thing Kaliyo asks when he's back to their ship. X'tchol sighs. He should've expected this, "You asked this about Jadus before. What is it with you and dicks?"

Kaliyo turns to look at him from where she's lying on the couch. "Not me and dicks. You and dicks. You're into them. And Jadus was a scary bastard, but his voice was hot, and he must have had money." 

X'tchol is unsure about that. When somebody is as fucking terrifying as Jadus was, you don't really think about their voice and income. Unless you're Kaliyo, it seems. Also, how the fuck did she decide who or what he's into.

"And how did you reach this conclusion?"

"You didn't go for it. We were shitfaced and I shoved my tits in your face but you still didn't. You guessed about me and Anspi. You don't go for any of the girls we meet on missions, and some of them are even into you." She begins listing her reasons. X'thol begins removing all of his armor, but not weapons, and plots his attack.

“And precisely which of them were into me?”.

“Mia was. And the cute Twi’lek secretary.” 

"Maybe I just don't find you attractive, have a good intuition, and don't like taking advantage of somebody." He offers. This is all actually true enough, besides the taking advantage one, maybe. 

"Nah. You'd still go for it when drunk then." Kaliyo shrugs. She isn't looking at him, which is great, she won't see anything coming.

"Maybe I'm a romantic". He must admit that this one is actually hilarious.

"You?", she is still talking, and not looking at him, therefore not seeing him stealthily reach for his knife, "Nah. You're a psychotic asshole. Sides, most guys begin expressing some interest by this point."

And then, X'tchol, deciding she should suffer for nothing in particular, or maybe for her opinion about his personality, pounces. Kaliyo isn’t ready, but she’s better at hand to hand than him. 

Which means X’tchol ends up pinned to the couch, the blunt end of his own knife pressed to his throat, "Fuck you. I hope your boyfriend's dick shrivels up and falls off." Kaliyo wishes, rubbing her side. 

#

Their new destination, as in, the location of the final known cell, is Alderaan. 

It has pretty mountains and fresh clean air. X'tchol stares at the scenery after they exit the spaceport. It's certainly pretty. Elegant palaces with delicate arches, gleaming in the light. Very different then everything they've seen so far.

Kaliyo is, of course, unimpressed. She probably liked Tatooine, with it's pretty crime and desolation, better. Too many rich and stuck up people here.

While X'tchol might agree about the people, he likes the mountains, and the snow. It's been awhile since he saw any snow. It reminds him of home, and honestly, he's unsure he appreciates the reminder. 

According to Watcher Two, their contact is some diplomat. She sounded sketchy again when speaking about him. X'tchol didn't bother quizzing her about the details.


	8. Chapter 8

Their Diplomat, the sketchy one, Vector, does turn out to be rather unusual. He's competent enough, and fine if you completely ignore the whole fact that he's part of insect hivemind, but seems fairly happy about that bit. And the fact that he wanted to have the whole, admittingly not very charming, noble family that cooperated with the terrorists given over to his Killik… friends? Family members? Overlords?

X’tchol is unsure of which adjective to use.

Though he did agree to Vector’s demand, figuring that he had no right to suddenly feel pity after everything he did. It's not as if killing someone is that different from letting them be assimilated by a hivemind. And X'tchol kills several people wherever he goes. So if X'tchol gets to kill people, and Kaliyo gets to kill people and rob their corpses, then Vector should get to assimilate people into the Killik hivemind.

It's only fair.

It does, however, make X'tchol worry a bit about having him on the ship. Keeper, who called to inform X'tchol that the terror network is done for, apparently reached some "agreement" with Diplomacy. And this agreement means that X'tchol is now Vector's superior.

Except X'tchol would rather avoid having anyone capable of mind control near him. And X'tchol is rather unsure whenever Vector, even without considering the half-insect situation, would manage to peacefully coexist in one small space with Kaliyo. The two of them appear to be incompatible due to some ideological differences. 

But X'tchol says nothing. This whole operation will likely be ending soon, and X'tchol had already ruined his relationship with Headquarters enough by provoking Zhorrid. He also doubts Headquarters will truly listen to any of his opinions. They would only use the fact that he has them against him eventually.

"Welcome to the team." X'tchol says. Vector nods. His eyes are pitch black, and... liquid looking. This must be how Humans feel when speaking to X'tchol. "You have an hour to pack any personal belongings. We’ll wait at the spaceport".

"Of course, Agent." Vector says. He probably picked up the nickname from Kaliyo.

"Just so you know, I'm not sharing the crew quarters with bugboy." Kaliyo declares once Vector is a sufficient distance away. X'tchol smirks, "Since this is the Empire, respected Sith traditions and all, I'll have you duel for them. Whoever wins gets to own the crew quarters. Loser sleeps in the cargo hold."

No duel ultimately takes place. And not due to the fact that getting the newest crew member killed twenty minutes after he steps foot on the ship would likely displease Headquarters. 

Vector simply agrees to occupy the cargo hold, without Kaliyo needing to threaten him into doing it. X'tchol is actually slightly disappointed, but promises Vector to get rid of most of the crap that had been accumulating in the cargo hold as soon as a pit stop on Nar Shaddaa would be possible.

Since unfortunately, Nar Shaddaa happens to be one of the only places where the unauthorized sale of large amount of blood stained pieces of armor and rare historical artifacts would go ignored. 

Vector does thank him, politely. Which is a point in his favor. But Kaliyo isn't half-insect, so X'tchol is rather unsure which of his current companions he prefers. He learned to understand Kaliyo, yet doesn't harbor any illusions about her loyalty.

But Vector is hard to read. X'tchol doesn't trust him yet, and does not fully understand his motivations either. This lack of information makes X'tchol want to avoid him as much as possible.

#

Headquarters has located the Eagle. Meaning X'tchol has to go shoot some more people. 

And, of course, because he is such an incredibly lucky individual, the Eagle... is on Hutta. X'tchol resists the urge to sigh. Three visits to Hutta in a year is entirely too many visits. One visit was entirely too many visits already. At least it'll make the whole "illegally sell a bunch of combat trophies to provide a surface for Vector to sleep on" plan happen sooner than X'tchol had expected.

"So, Kaliyo, are you excited about seeing Hutta again?" He asks as soon as the call is disconnected. He knows that she usually lurks in the hallway whenever X'tchol and Headquarters are talking. And she knows he knows, but neither of them says anything about it. 

"Yea. About that. Can't bugboy go?" She asks. She is leaning on the wall, examining some new dagger of hers. Casual. Like she absolutely wasn't listening to anything being said in the room next to her.

"Why? Don't you want to see your old friend Nem'ro?" X'tchol smirks, "We had so much fun last time. Shot all those gangsters. Messed with Fa'athra. Don't tell me you don't want a repeat."

"Just say that you don't wanna be left alone with bugboy cause you're afraid he'll get his creepy insects into your head." Kaliyo mutters. But she doesn't protest any further, so X'tchol doesn't even bother suggesting that she stay alone with Vector for a few quiet hours, just to test whenever he is in fact potentially dangerous.

Turns out the Eagle is hiding out in one of the damn warehouses, in the same damn field of mud, in which Eckanah, nicest of Sith Lords, held his meeting about a month ago. It truly seems as if they're the most popular spot to conduct clandestine dealings on all of Hutta. Kind of makes you wonder why Nem'ro or Fa'athra haven't bombed them yet.

Must be because they're using them too. 

X'tchol did make sure to hurry. Watcher Two said the Eagle's people have already began launching the Eradicators. He does hold on to the hope that they might not truly exist, and that whoever murdered Jadus is an evil, but reasonable individual, who wouldn't bomb his own Empire to prove a point.

The Eagle's defenses are a joke. Some turrets, easily disabled, and maybe five badly trained guards. So badly trained that X'tchol doesn't even feel that bad for taking their credit chips while Kaliyo watches in silent approval.

She must be really rubbing off on him. Maybe he should give Vector a chance, just so he doesn't become a carbon copy of her. 

Currently, X'tchol is camping behind some oil barrels with Kaliyo. One of the guards that escaped is busy informing him of the fact that everybody but them just got shot. The Eagle sends him away.

And then he stands there, before what seems to be one of his beloved Eradicators. He almost glows in the yellowish light. The only sound for exactly forty seconds, and X'tchol makes sure to count, are the footsteps of the guard escaping.

Then they stop. Either he made it, or the military got him. The Eagle, likely having decided the same thing, tells X'tchol to come out. So, he'd known, but chose to send his people away, thereby increasing their chances of survival. Good to know all of his fancy talks about self sacrifice were not empty promises.

But when he launches into what seems to be another one, praising his own efforts, Cipher almost can't resist just shooting him in his damn smug face and be over with it. X'tchol, on the other hand, somewhat wants to hear what he has to say. Not due to believing or caring about any of it, but rather out of desire to receive some clues regarding the identity of whoever killed Jadus.

The Eagle, as X'tchol had seen before, is the type of enjoy hearing himself talk. He used to be a pilot, fought for the Empire, had most of his squad killed. Which made him realize that the Empire was truly a horrible place. How tragic. The Empire technically killed most of X'tchol's former squad too, and he didn't go on to found a terrorist organization.

Though, to think of it, this was probably part of why Intelligence was so insistent on him joining. Can't start a terrorist organization out of Imperial Intelligence. You'll get caught immediately. Still, the whole thing mostly holds up until the Eagle moves on to ramble about "the old empire". X'tchol really wants to make some derisive comments about this part, or simply burst into laughter. "You really think something was better before?" He asks instead. 

He truly wants to know the answer. Just to understand how deluded the Eagle actually is. 

The Eagle spews some nonsense about the dark millennium, civilization's dark zenith, and other long and pretty sounding terms. Useless. Until he mentions being approached by a patron, and being offered a list of individuals who shared his sentiments. 

"This... patron, who was he?" X'tchol asks. He is unsure he will receive a reply, but he wants to try. This patron is likely the one who killed Jadus, and is also someone X'tchol should avoid ever stumbling upon in the future. As well as someone X'tchol might have to fight, eventually, should this patron decide that X'tchol is too much of a problem. 

The Eagle claims he'd never actually seen the patron, but that he's Imperial. That's not new information. He also informs X'tchol that should the Eradicators get activated without the command codes, they'll fire blindly, hitting whatever.

Charming. If this is true, then whoever planned those was probably a Sith, or something similar.

Having apparently decided that he said everything he wanted to, the Eagle promptly blows himself to shit. X'tchol can feel something wet and slimy landing on his face. Kaliyo kind of looks vaguely surprised. Then he gets thrown back. His shoulder digs into something sharp

Once reality reasserts itself he can see Watcher Three kneeling next to him. Kid looks the same as he did on Dromund Kaas. There is a mushy pile of... organic material on the floor. Leftovers of the Eagle. Oh well. X'tchol would've blown himself to shit too if he had a choice between being prisoner of Intelligence and that. 

According to him, he's been sent for information retrieval. X'tchol is very happy for him, and also would like very much to clean the dead terrorist pieces off himself. They're oddly slimy and warm.

Watcher Three fiddles around with some of the tech in the warehouse while X'tchol does his best to wipe the blood from himself using limited resources. Kaliyo seems unbothered by the gore covering her, so X'tchol doesn't waste his energy offering assistance. She’s a grown woman who can clean herself. 

Once X'tchol feels slightly cleaner, and Watcher Three is done fiddling around, some bad news, and some slightly less bad news, are revealed. The bad news are that the Eagle wasn't bluffing when he said that the Eradicators will fire blindly unless properly activated. The slightly less bad news are that that if activated properly, using two batches of codes, the Eradicators can be controlled, and even disabled.

What makes those news slightly less bad, rather than good, is the fact that the Eagle only has half the codes. And the other half likely belongs to the Patron. Whom X'tchol had really hoped he could avoid meeting. 

He's also wanted back at Headquarters, according to Watcher Three, and somehow he doubts they only wish to congratulate him for his partial success in stopping the terrorists. 

"I really hate the person who got the idea for the Eradicators." X'tchol mutters to Kaliyo as they make their way towards the spaceport. He's strangely tired, and his shoulder still hurts from being bashed against some crates earlier. 

"Really? Cause I want one. Think we can borrow one for the ship? I'll be yours for life if you help me steal one." Kaliyo says. X'tchol... somehow feels entirely too tired to play along. He must be getting old and callous. 

"No. I will inform Zhorrid that you killed Jadus if you attempt this. And I am being serious."' 

"You're no fun, Agent."

#

Kaas City is as cheerfully oppressive as usual. Which means that no one is probably aware of the potentially impending catastrophe looming above their heads. 

Headquarters, meanwhile, is in crisis mode. They're searching for the remaining Eradicators, and have alerted the military, but the situation still looks bad. According to Watcher Two, if the Eradicators fire before most of them are found, the estimated damage would be "ten to fifty million deaths on each planet targeted. Forty percent military, sixty percent civilian.".

Even X'tchol has to concede that's... unacceptable. Even if you optimistically put the loss at around ten million per planet. And he’s not exactly a paragon of empathy. Keeper agrees.

And that leaves finding the "patron", and acquiring his half of the codes, as the only option. Neither Watcher Two, nor Keeper, seem to fully believe that the Eagle's patron is Imperial.

"Sir... I fear the Eagle may be telling the truth." X'tchol begins, fully realizing nobody might believe him, and at worst, he'll be executed for spreading slander. But this information might turn out to be critical. And he trusts both Keeper and Watcher Two to keep their mouth shut as much as he can trust anyone. "Before Lord Jadus died, he requested to meet with me in his chambers in the Citadel. There, he revealed some plans, that when considered from certain perspectives, could come across as... disloyal towards the Empire." 

"What are you implying, Agent?" Keeper asks, he looks concerned.

X'tchol focuses on breathing. He needs to phrase this in a way that wouldn't come across as traitorous, or overly accusing. "I... respectfully, would like to imply that if someone highly placed enough were to find out about those plans they, well, they could've taken them as a sign that the Empire had deteriorated. The Eagle, before he self detonated, mentioned some such sentiments. I believe whoever is funding the Eagle may have been the one who proposed the idea of killing Lord Jadus."

"Have you mentioned this to anyone?" Keeper is doing is piercing stare thing. Thankfully, X'tchol wanted to protect his skin enough, and kept quiet,"No, sir. After Jadus died, and before I received information confirming my suspicions from the Eagle, it seemed irrelevant.".

"What about Darth Zhorrid? Did you not consider this information important enough to share with her?" Keeper asks. Digging for something.

X'tchol can feel something cold sliding down his spine at the question. Sharing what he knew was a mistake, but he did it anyway. Because he is an idiot. "Sir, with all due respect, I believe you know what Zhorrid's reaction would have consisted of. I do not enjoy being tortured." 

"I see. While potentially useful before, this information not change matters now. We can't ignore the possibility of a traitor. That's why we're meeting privately; only the people in this room know the full situation." 

X'tchol nods. He doesn't bother reminding Keeper that Watcher Three knows some of the situation too, with him being sent to Hutta and all. He already screwed up enough by letting Keeper know he'd been withholding information. Saying something about Watcher Three would get viewed as an attempt at distraction.

Watcher Two has the patron's potential location down. The Eagle has been sending periodical transmissions to an uninhabited system left off most star charts. X'tchol is to go there, and obtain the codes. Or die horribly. But that's sort of not surprising anymore. 

Before being dismissed, Watcher Two, oddly enough for herself, says that she'll be at her station, if X'tchol wants to talk. Hopefully Kaliyo, whose been left to fend for herself in Operations, won't terrorize her too much.

Once they're alone, Keeper lets X'tchol know that Zhorrid wants to see him, again. As if things weren't bad enough already. X'tchol finds himself remembering what Eckanah said on Hutta, about Zhorrid not being popular amongst the other Sith, and Keeper also hints that Zhorrid's reign may not last forever. 

X'tchol nods. He understands.

Watcher Two is at her station, predictably being terrorized by Kaliyo. X'tchol banishes her by informing her that he saw a few petty officers open a bottle of something in the main room, and that they might even agree to share with her, once she gives them reasons to.

He's left alone with Watcher Two. The last time they've spoken in a non-professional capacity it didn't go over particularly well, so X'tchol decides to speak to her mostly to buy time before having to go enjoy Zhorrid's company. This time it goes better. Watcher Two actually says that she's enjoyed being partners. X'tchol cannot fully understand why, as their conversations mostly consisted of X'tchol either politely agreeing with everything she said, or pressuring her whenever she seemed to be hiding something.

But it still makes X'tchol entirely too pleased that he's being acknowledged by her. Desire for validation. Pointless.

As he's heading towards the Citadel, X'tchol considers his options. Not talking to Zhorrid would be impossible, but the idea that he's going to have to do it makes something twist inside his stomach. He'd rather go get eaten by the vastly overgrown Yozusk that reportedly lives near Grathan's compound than face Zhorrid. 

This response is entirely emotional. Caused by personal weakness. Zhorrid is, objectively, as dangerous as the giant Yozusk, yet she inspires significantly more fear in X'tchol. 

X'tchol may be afraid of Sith, but Cipher Nine should not be. X'tchol can be Cipher, if he wants to. They are the same individual. X'tchol will be Cipher. 

This time he thinks about the bodies on purpose. Blood soaking into snow. It was his fault. He was useless. X'tchol can feel his fingers digging into the metal railing of the walkway leading up to the Citadel. The metal feels too cold. 

Zhorrid is found in her office. She looks even worse than usual. There are bruises on her face. And she smells... burned? Cipher resists the urge to smile. Whoever did this to her, they certainly have his heartfelt thanks. 

Her neck, in particular, looks wonderful. It's currently basically a huge bruise, mottled green, and bleeding in some areas. Must have been painful. 

Cipher actually asks, just to know who to whom he needs to be eternally grateful. When he hears that this was, in fact, the work of other Sith, he wants to smile. The knowledge that she got what she deserved, as well a series of mental images focusing on how she got all those very interesting bruises, is mostly what gets him through the conversation without mocking her. 

Because now, half dead and humiliated by her own peers, she is not nearly as confident as she appeared before. 

She wants him to promise that he'll kill whoever killed Jadus. He does. He'll kill whoever this is anyway, and while seeing Zhorrid throw a temper tantrum like the child she is would be amusing, Cipher would prefer to avoid any potential physical damage right before an important mission. 

As he goes to find Kaliyo, Cipher finds himself hoping that whoever hurt Zhorrid will decide to finish the job while he's gone.


	9. Chapter 9

X'tchol has an hour to "prepare" abroad his ship before the jump to the uncharted system where the individual with half the codes is hiding. He spends most of it sprawled on his actual bed for once, not really bothering to do anything besides staring at the ceiling, and trying not to fall asleep, since no sleep is better than an hour of sleep until a certain point. 

He is nervous. Afraid isn't the right word here. Until now, he was sure that whoever killed Jadus wouldn't actually be found. What happened... yesterday, considering the time right now, shattered that theory. 

And yet. What if the patron is truly someone so important that his treason would need to be kept absolutely confidential? X'tchol sighs. That'll mean a discreet elimination of X'tchol himself, most likely. Especially now that he admitted he knew that Jadus had plans. 

Why did he admit any of it, anyway? He should've kept his mouth shut. Headquarters found the information useless anyhow. If put at ten million the damage might be... if not acceptable, then permissible, and the idea of it shouldn’t make him disturbed enough to reveal such information. That sounds suspiciously like Cipher speaking. 

X'tchol sighs, mentally commanding Cipher to shut up and retreat into some less used areas of their shared brain. He's not needed right now. Cipher obeys, because he is ultimately an entirely imaginary creation. 

He is a method for X'tchol to accept the realities of his questionable life choices. An odd one, certainly, but not ineffective so far. X'tchol might as well go with whatever works here. Since he's sure that there's a cell waiting for him in Shadow Town, just in case Headquarters suddenly decide that he's no longer useful. 

The ship is quiet. Some machinery can be heard faintly humming in the background. X'tchol closes his eyes. He doesn't plan on sleeping, but he might as well enjoy a bit of rest. And as soon as he does that, his planned moment of maybe not peace, but at least quiet gets destroyed by two simultaneous voices.

"Hey Agent!"

"Agent, we are sorry to disturb you."

X'tchol opens his eyes to see Kaliyo and Vector hovering above him. Kaliyo looks like she always does, while Vector looks sheepish. "Is the ship malfunctioning?" He asks.

Kaliyo and Vector exchange looks, and Vector, apparently deciding to take initiative here, replies, "...No?".

"You seem alive. Did our mission got canceled?" X'tchol continues.

Neither of them replies. X'tchol groans, "This means everything is in order. What did you wake me up for?".

Kaliyo smirks, "You weren't sleeping. Bugboy here wants you to supervise our game, because he doesn't trust me not to cheat." 

"Yes. We have no reason to believe Kaliyo would play fairly." Vector adds.

"We have thirty more minutes until we must embark on a mission that might determine the future of the Empire, and you want me to supervise an improvised tournament of..." X'tchol begins, before realizing that he does not actually know what game is about to be played.

"Corellian Spike Sabacc." Vector helpfully adds. 

Kaliyo rolls her eyes, "Come on, Agent, are you really going to miss the opportunity to exert your authority?".

"Since when do I have any authority whatsoever upon you?" X'tchol asks. "What are you playing for?".

"Kaliyo possesses some officially illegal historical documents. We wish to study them."

"Bugboy's credits and left kidney."

X'tchol smiles . Those two apparently are capable of working together once given a common goal. That's encouraging. And there's no time left to lose, he thinks as he assumes a slightly more vertical position, "Fine. Hand over the cards. I'm dealing. We don't have much time."

A while later, Kaliyo suffers a devastating and undeniable defeat at Vector's hands. X'tchol actually finds himself impressed. Both of them cheated, but Vector was much better at hiding it. 

Forcing Kaliyo to actually hand over the documents, however, would be rather complicated process. Hence, she might've not truly played to win. 

They gather in the cockpit for the jump, as it is the only room on the ship with windows. Kaliyo brings a bottle of... something. It tastes less terrible than her usual stuff. She and X'tchol toast, while Vector politely refuses an offer to join them.

"For the Empire." X'tchol says before swallowing the contents of his glass. He doesn't mean it, but it seems appropriate, considering the occasion. The patron's ship looms before them. It is appropriately huge and scary. 

Kaliyo unceremoniously tosses back hers, and imminently pours herself another one.

X'tchol does not feel ready for this mission. Failure is unacceptable. Cipher, however, should be looking forward to it, because Cipher is the ideal operative. 

#

Watcher Two arrives a bit sooner, and is found waiting for them in the ship's hanger. 

Kaliyo voices her approval of the patron's ship. Must be the size. Cipher offers to leave her there once the mission is done with. It makes her shut up. 

Vector remains silent. He looks uneasy.

The ship is a modified Imperial dreadnought that's jamming all communications. That’s actually interesting. It means no one can find it, but also that no one on the ship can send any messages to the outside world. 

Imperial technology. And the red and black flags hanging everywhere are also rather Imperial, Cipher notes. Seems like the patron's a staunch patriot. 

Watcher Two hands him a comlink. She'll hide here, and monitor things. Cipher acknowledges, and suggests that Vector stay with her, just in case some guard decides to wander down here.

She looks understandably uneasy about having Vector around, but agrees.

And Cipher goes to face what would be either the biggest success, or worst failure, of his career.

There are people all over the ship. They don't seem all too sane. This means they've been stuck here awhile, already. Or maybe they were always like this, and the patron just decided to stick them all here for some unfathomable reason. 

What greets Cipher on the command deck is... unexpected.

Jadus, who is very alive and seemingly in excellent health, is imposingly looming over everything from his raised platform near the windows. And it is Jadus, not simply someone wearing his armor, because the oppressive aura would be hard to replicate. Cipher's mind flashes back to the information he glimpsed on Nar Shaddaa. Organic weapons. Rooms on the Dominator that could be converted to prison cells. Cipher made a rather significant miscalculation. And to think he would've guessed long ago.

He underestimated Jadus. 

But nothing can be done about that now. So he approaches.

Kaliyo tries shooting. Jadus disappears when the bullet reaches him, only to reappear a second later, and thereby further confirms that he's unlikely to be a double. Kaliyo starts choking randomly, without anyone visibly constricting her airflow. Must be some force trick. Cipher observes. She brought this upon herself by attacking without being commanded to do so.

"We will discuss terror, the Empire, and the Sith." Jadus offers.

Cipher agrees. He will listen

Watcher Two orders him to keep Jadus talking over comlink. Not a problem. Jadus is ready and willing to talk.

He orchestrated such a grand scheme. Of course he feels the need to explain his genius to someone. According to him, the whole "terrorist network and impossible assassination" plot was merely a distraction. Something for the Dark Council to focus on while Jadus focused on something grander, and waited for the Eradicators to be ready. 

And now that they are, Jadus wants to bomb all of his enemies, and start a grand new epoch of fear and degradation. Or rather, Cipher thinks, gain power over all of those of his former enemies who survive the Eradicators. 

Jadus offers a deal. Cipher only needs to enter the other half of the codes. The Eradicators will fire, and he'll be rewarded. 

He's being promised influence, wealth, a place in the new Empire. Those promises are dubious at best. Last time Jadus promised him something, his lordship faked his own death, and Cipher makes sure to remind him of that fact now. 

That doesn't faze Jadus much. 

"I can be merciful. Take the time to consider your options." Jadus offers. Cipher looks around. Kaliyo looks angry, and is protectively holding a hand before herself. One of the ship's "residents" is huddling under a chair. The overall atmosphere is certainly cheerful. 

"Yes. My Lord." Cipher replies. 

He is not afraid. If he dies, he dies. If the Eradicators will fire, they will fire. But the mission will get completed.

Cipher wanders a bit around the bridge, to give the impression of him thinking deeply, and then wanders off. He reaches a small control room in one of the hallways.

"Watcher Two?" He whispers. She replies immediately.

The mission objective has changed. Priority one is now neutralizing Jadus. The Eradicators are a secondary objective. Watcher Two has already calculated all the odds. Must be why she was quiet before.

Cipher can deactivate the Eradicators, since not one would stop him from accessing the controls, but this would mean giving Jadus the time and the opportunity to escape. There won't be many casualties, but Jadus might return, eventually. And the Dark Council will be angry.

Jadus is a threat to them. He fooled and humiliated them. They wouldn't want this information getting out. If Jadus escapes, this information will certainly get out. 

The Dark Council should not be displeased. Or, rather, Cipher does not wish to become the one guilty of displeasing them.

Who knows how many of his coworkers will die by enraged Sith if he does that?

Or he can activate the Eradicators and slip off the bridge to sabotage the ship's systems. Once the jamming field and engines are out, the ship will be easy enough to surround. Watcher Two promises she'll contact all allied ships within hyperjump distance, and have them close in on Jadus as soon as they're able.

But there will be casualties, if he chooses this path. Millions of nameless, faceless dead. Data on a spreadsheet.

This is acceptable.

Cipher knows what he must do. 

Three codes. It doesn't take long to input them. The rest are programmed into the ship's mainframe.

Once he is done, he turns to Jadus. 

Jadus is pleased.

Cipher does not care about how Jadus feels, but hopes that his deception will remain undiscovered. "I am going to need your help, don't fail me now." He whispers to Watcher Two. This whole plan depends on her contacting enough allies in possession of large ships. 

Jadus speaks again. He will route all distress calls from planets attacked by the Eradicators here. A thousand voices screaming in pain and terror, as he puts it. 

"I'll do my best to appreciate them." Cipher comments, dryly.

As the screaming starts, Chrix'tchol'ishel, former CEDF analyst, a study in bad decisions, finds that he does not exist right now. He isn't real. The real one, the one on the bridge, listening to the distress calls and meaningless screaming, is Cipher Nine.

And Cipher Nine does not care.

X'tchol is just watching. Somewhere far out. He can hear everything. He can see himself standing on the bridge. His, and at the same time not his, eyes, seem to be glowing in the darkness. 

Cipher's face is perfectly blank. 

Instability is bad. This isn't real. They are one person. 

The real him is still down there. Whatever out here isn't real. Or maybe it's the opposite. He just murdered thousands. He did this. He didn't do this. X'tchol is unsure. He prefers to think he didn't. 

Cipher is saying something, playing along with Watcher Two's plan. He wants to inspect the engines. His face is a mask. Nothing besides the lips moves. He goes to the lift. Kaliyo follows him. She doesn't notice anything wrong. Why doesn't she notice anything wrong?

Maybe, if he had died two years ago, this could've been avoided. Then there would be someone else standing in X'tchol's place right now. Facing his choice. Someone who would've done the right thing. The noble thing. Sacrificed themselves to hopefully cripple Jadus.

But X'tchol is weak. And Cipher is not noble. So millions die. X'tchol should have ended up a frozen corpse, along with everybody else. This is what he deserved. This is what he still deserves. Maybe it's better like this, to observe. 

At least this way his mistakes won't be his own anymore. 

Cipher is busy disabling the backup generator while X'tchol considers all of this. He moves cleanly, efficiently. Slaughters anyone who tries to stop him. Distress calls still play in the background. A different voice begins playing over the ship's intercom, and each time whatever is being said dissolves into begging while something explodes in the background. 

They don't bother Cipher. But they bother X’tchol. Each one of them feels like being stabbed. Why?

Cipher knows what kind of welcome he’ll receive once he’s back on the bridge. He prepares. Loads some toxic gas canisters into his rifle, just in case the mask Jadus wears is more for show than due to him actually needing a mask. 

And then he fights. Jadus is strong, but he is predictable, and cannot maintain ranged attacks for long, so Cipher relies on Kaliyo’s lack of self preservation. He attempts to get a clean shot whenever she uselessly charges at Jadus. It takes several attempts, as Jadus always notices he's being aimed at. 

The fight seems to go on forever. Watcher Two practically yells directions at him over comlink.

Cipher ignores some of them, but does find the one about the shields useful. Locking Jadus inside of them would prevent him from being damaged, but would also prevent him from causing any damage to objects located outside of the shields.

Once Jadus is locked away, likely to his great displeasure, Cipher stumbles towards the command console. One of his legs might be broken, and the left side of his body appears to be only partially responsive due to being hit by lightning. None of this is irreparable damage. 

He doesn’t reach the console.

Something hits the ship. Cipher finds himself being rather aburptly acquainted with the floor. He can see fifteen whole star destroyers in the control room’s windows now. Reinforcements. About time. 

The console is right before him. 

It activates. 

“Hold your fire. Jadus has been neutralized.” Cipher informs the small Keeper holoimage. He tries standing up, but his potentially broken leg refuses to cooperate. That means he’ll be having this conversation pathetically half slumped against the back of a control panel. 

"We can discuss why you activated the weapons later. But I imagine the dark Council would be pleased with the result." Keeper says. He sounds… unhappy?

Why would he be unhappy? Cipher wonders. He did what Watcher Two said, and Watcher Two knew the interests of the Empire better than him. 

The Dark Council will be satisfied, and wouldn’t terrorize Intelligence. Keeper said it himself. 

Kaliyo offers him a hand, and tugs him up. She doesn’t look that good either. There’s a huge red bruise on most of her face from when Jadus threw her headfirst into a console. 

She actually allows Cipher to lean on her, again. The last time she did that was on Nar Shaddaa. 

"You what this means, Agent? I means we won." Kaliyo says.

Cipher smirks, "We took down a Dark Council member." 

"Next time, we take them all." She certainly seems excited. 

"Of course, but you're the one taking the first shot." Cipher comments.

Jadus doesn't seem to appreciate the conversation going on right before his nose too much. But he appears incapable of doing something about that. 

"Tell me, Cipher Nine, was your victory worth it?" He asks, out of his temporary prison. 

That gives Cipher a pause. The answer depends on who'd be doing the answering. Cipher thinks it was worth it. He did what was required to avoid angering the Dark Council and complete the mission, and everything else is inconsequential. 

X'tchol just keeps staring blankly at the stranger occupying his body. Images flicker. It truly seems like the only things his existence ever causes is misery and death. But he is not the one replying.

“I completed my mission.” Cipher answers.

Jadus seems to find this reply amusing. According to him, the Eradicators were supposed to eliminate those in the Empire he considered corrupt. But now he lost, and those individuals may continue unchecked. “So be content with the Empire you've made.” He finishes.

Cipher listens apathetically. 

"Terrorists lead revolutions, not me." He replies. It isn't a lie.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: While there were elements of it before, this chapter contains full on suicidal ideation in the beginning. Please keep that in mind. Also, I've edited the tags, as this is coming out much darker than I expected, but if you're reading this and think I didn't tag for something I should have, please let me know.

Dromund Kaas was, unsurprisnigly, one of the planets Jadus planned to strike. Fortunately, the planet is mostly jungle, so casualties are estimated in thousands, rather than millions. Well, ignoring the mountains of dead wildlife, at least.  
  
X'tchol tries flexing the fingers of his left hand. It is surprisingly difficult. Turns out his leg was not broken after all, but according to the Medic who treated him, the nerve damage from the lightning would remain to some degree if he doesn't have all sorts of cybernetics implanted.  
  
Now he has a strange tree like scar over most of his torso. He should show it to Kaliyo, to let her know what she missed out on by not getting electrocuted. She actually got off easy, with a couple of cracked ribs and a great many bruises.   
  
Kaas City is eerily quiet, and also wet. It must have rained when the Eradicators fired. Some buildings were destroyed by the attack, and droids are silently picking up debris, it's possible to hear their motors humming when you stand near them. There are corpses too, most of them covered in white tarp. This is his fault. X'tchol did this. Or Cipher.  
  
They're the same. Not for him, maybe, but for everybody else.   
  
Intelligence won't spread the word about his actions, necessary sacrifices and all, they all understand. At least that's what Watcher Two, or rather, the newly appointed Keeper, said. He got put in an impossible situation, and made a rational, but painful decision. No one would dare blame him for anything.   
  
Maybe Keeper planned all this so she could get promoted due to the untimely death of the former Minister of Intelligence. This wouldn't be such a surprise.  
  
To think of it, Keeper is also the reason he's wandering Kaas City at three in the morning, somewhat drunk, after Kaliyo left, claiming that he looked "too fucking depressed" for her to deal with. Typical. Probably found herself some dumb officers to cheat out of their money at cards. But he ended up going drinking with Kaliyo after Watcher Two, no, Keeper put a hand on his shoulder, gently, only the fingertips, since she was touching an alien, and told him that he is dismissed. That she will handle the cleanup. That he should take a break, rest, something, for a few days.  
  
But he can't rest. He would've been happier if she sent him on another mission immediately. To dismantle some new terror network. To fight. To obey and not have to think. But he wasn't told to do any of it, so he drank and moped around until Kaliyo got tired of tolerating him instead.  
  
But eventually Intelligence will have another task for him. X'tchol wonders how many deaths his next operation would result in. Millions again? Or merely thousands?  
And more importantly, why is that question bothering him so much?  
  
He always had many flaws, but at least excessive empathy was never one of them. He can still remember his sister, tall and stately, wearing her long white robes, telling him as much. She also told him that he should take Intelligence's offer, because he will no longer have a place in their house either way, and if he takes the offer and disappears, she will be able to save face by claiming he died with the rest of his squad, rather than killed them all by being a colossal failure.   
  
X'tchol is actually quite sure that she would've had him assassinated if he stayed.   
  
She was right to, basically, informally exile him. Because he is weak, and incapable of accepting reality.   
  
Maybe his choice was truly the most rational one, he thinks, standing on the landing platform where the shuttles to the Citadel are parked, or maybe he could've done something.   
  
Fought Jadus one on one, without sabotaging the ship first. This would've resulted in his heroic death, but he could've, maybe, taken Jadus with him. Another possible advantage of this choice would've been X’tchol’s inability to regret it, with him being dead and all.   
  
But... that does raise an idea.  
  
He stares down from the platform, into the chasm. There are impossibly tall buildings rising up from it. Glowing blue. It's a long fall. Not the kind you usually survive, unless you're incredibly lucky, or unlucky, considering the state you'll end in if you do somehow survive.  
  
One step forward. And he wouldn't have to learn to live with the knowledge that he murdered millions, just to thwart some idiotic Sith's ambition, the details of which will never get out. The existence of which was the fault of the dysfunctional Imperial system of government.   
  
Intelligence would lose an asset, and Kaliyo would lose a drinking partner, but he doubts either of them will truly miss him.  
  
The chasm beneath the landing platform is empty blackness, but X'tchol assumes there is concentrate pavement down there. These buildings must stand on something. He steps closer. With everything going on, it will take them some time to find his body, but they'll recognize it immediately by the blue skin- There are at most five Chiss in Kaas City, including him.  
  
"Chrk... whatever, Cipher!" Somebody, their voice somewhat familiar, yells behind his back. He turns to see Vette and Eckanah standing beneath the platform. Well, there goes his plan. Also, what are they doing, taking a stroll at this hour?  
  
"My Lord, Vette, can't sleep?" He asks. They come closer.   
  
"Just returned from taking out my master's trash," Eckanah explains, and Vette nods, adding, "He sounded kind of pissed when he sent us, so figured we'll go tell him we're done as soon we came back. Because angry Baras is actually scary."  
  
"I imagine your master is busy right now, like most of the Citadel, some things happened." X'tchol says, "The shuttles are out anyway, so it's not like you can get up there."

  
"Must be important, for the shuttles to be disabled." Eckanah notes. Smart bastard. His hair is in a long braid today, with some sort of large gold clip at the end. It's very neat looking, but X'tchol is having a hard time picturing a Sith Lord braiding hair.  
  
Eckanah then turns to peer over at the row of corpses near the landing platform, impassively curious.   
  
"A sixth of Kaas City blown up, about four thousand dead, a lot more injured." X'tchol explains, he doesn't bother clarifying more. Apparently they're not about to leave him here alone, he decides, so he might as well get off the platform.  
  
"I see." Eckanah comments."May I ask whether this is the reason for your loitering?"  
  
"Not precisely. Kaliyo. Rattataki, kind of short, bald, many piercing, you’ve seen her before, declared me boring and abandoned me here." He explains. Leaving out the most important parts of the story, which are classified, anyway.  
  
"Rude." Vette comments.  
  
Her comment earns her long stares from both X'tchol and Eckanah.  
  
"What?" She asks, hands on her hips.   
  
"Nothing." X'tchol replies.  
  
Vette seems thoughtful for a few moments, and then turns to Eckanah, smiling somehow entirely too sweetly, "So, we're not going to see Baras today. Not that I'm ever going to complain about not having to see Baras. And standing out here with the bodies is very... atmospheric and all, but it looks like it might rain soon. And it's cold. And I'm kind of hungry?"  
  
Eckanah sighs. "I suppose that Baras wouldn't appreciate being disturbed, considering the circumstances."  
  
"Yes! Thank you! No Baras tonight!" Vette chirps. "You coming?".  
  
There is an awkward pause caused by the fact that it takes X'tchol an embarrassingly long time to realize the question is directed at him. And even once he realizes that, he’s unsure how to reply.  
  
He doubts Vette would've so cheerfully invited him to come along had she known that all the dead littering the city are his direct responsibility. He doubts Vette would have spoken to him, had she known.  
  
But Eckanah looks at him with glowing yellow eyes, unreadable, and Vette is smiling. And the sky does look like it might rain again soon. At least this is what X'tchol wants to believe.   
  
"You may come." Eckanah comments, eventually, apparently having figured out that X'tchol would not react unless somehow prompted, "However, I must warn you that my dwelling is currently is a sorry state. There is dust, and not much entertainment. The droids usually run out of power while I am gone. My family kept slaves, but my uncle, Lord Koreth, kept slicing their hands off down whenever the-"  
  
Eckanah doesn't get the opportunity to finish his very interesting excuse, due to to Vette’s intervention. She elbows him in the ribs. Rather hard, actually, considering who Eckanah is. "Yikes. Remember we talked about the whole how to not make people continuously fear for their lives thing?".  
  
"Yes." Eckanah sounds like this isn't the first time Vette critiques him.  
  
Vette sighs, "Well, telling someone who isn't Sith about your freaky family is... not going to earn you any friends, or friendly allies, whatever."   
  
Eckanah seems thoughtful, "I am still considering that, Vette."  
  
"Thank you for your invitation, but we shouldn't be seen speaking as it is. My Lord." X'tchol says. He is mostly trying to convince himself here. Those two actually seem… decent? They shouldn't have to waste their time on him. They should just leave him here, before he manages to talk himself out of plummeting to his death.  
  
Eckanah shrugs, "Didn't you say that Baras is presently occupied? With such a body count, I'd imagine he has several more pressing matters to worry about than the comings and goings of my abode."  
  
X'tchol resists the urge to sigh. Eckanah seems to have no idea how spying on someone usually goes. "He could've bugged it, or installed cameras, you realize that, right?"  
  
"The apartment officially belongs to my mother. Darth Akel. She is an overseer at the Academy, but spends most of her time in our estate on Ziost. Baras does not know I have access to it, especially since I have a personal apartment in the adjacent building.” Eckanah says. His argument is reasonable.  
  
X'tchol gives up. This is a bad idea, but he is pathetically afraid of being left alone with the dead. Hopefully Baras is truly very busy, and decided against surveilling Eckanah’s family. 

  
This decision of his is why he ends up sitting on the most expensive couch he's ever seen in his life, drinking some incredibly fancy tea that likely cost more than his yearly salary, and which was handed to him by a Sith. A Sith that's currently sitting on the couch opposite him, holding his own tea.  
  
Eckanah's unofficial apartment is huge, and occupies the top of one of residential towers. It is... nice? At least once you get used to the fact that there are Sith relics on every corner, such as the... glowing skull sculpture in the middle of the table, and that all the furniture looks too expensive to actually use.  
  
Also, X’tchol is fairly sure he noticed at least three turned off fountains on the balcony.  
  
Vette is curled in one of the actually very comfortable looking armchairs. There are several empty commercial snack wrappers on the table. Leftovers from "dinner". X'tchol hadn't exactly expected a Sith to cook, but he definitely hadn't expected a Sith to just... sort of dump a bunch of snacks on the table, while having a piece of dehydrated meat sticking out of his mouth.  
  
The dehydrated meat was actually pretty good. Spicy and not that dry. Better than some rations.   
  
X'tchol doesn't want to talk now. He mostly listens to Eckanah and Vette chatting. It seems like they're leaving for Taris in a few days. The impression he's getting from their conversation is that of a rather strange pair of surrogate siblings. That raises several questions. Why would someone like Eckanah actually act... borderline familial towards someone like Vette?  
  
Questions are great right now. They keep X'tchol from falling asleep. X'tchol is unsure he wants to sleep, despite knowing that not sleeping for three days is not a great idea, no matter how many stims you inject to compensate.  
  
The skulls in the middle of the table are looking at him with their glowing red eyes. They almost seem alive, somehow. X'tchol reaches out to touch one of them, out of curiosity, but is stopped by Eckanah, "I would not touch this, if I were you, as it is somewhat temperamental in nature. It's also a family heirloom of my mother's, and I doubt she'll be pleased if you provoke it.”  
  
The Sith is still regally draped on the couch, sipping his tea. He is looking at Vette, and seems content to mostly ignore X'tchol, who kind of jerks his hand away from the skull.   
  
"My Lord, thank you for your hospitality? I suppose I will stop intruding now?" X'tchol offers. He doubts Eckanah truly wants him around. The Sith probably allowed him in here only to placate Vette.

"Have I dismissed you?"  
  
The question gets asked in a completely neutral tone. No hint of emotion. Reminds him of Jadus, in a way. Makes him feel the way he did on the damned ship. He is, somehow, looking over his own shoulder. Cipher is occupying the obscenely sized couch instead. Cipher smiles, slightly, not enough to offend, "No. My Lord."  
  
"Then you will stay until I have said otherwise."   
  
"Yes. My Lord."   
  
Oddly enough, Eckanah groans at that. "And cease constantly using the title. It is vexing."  
  
"Yes. M-" Luckily, Cipher manages to shut up before the title slips out. Eckanah nods approvingly. Good. Cipher would prefer to avoid making him angry, and least until he fully recovers after his battle with Jadus.  
  
Vette coughs, "Stop threatening him. He didn't do anything yet."  
  
"I am not currently threatening anyone." Eckanah seems personally offended. The expression is... deeply hilarious on him. X'tchol feels safe enough to crawl out of the deep recesses of his brain.  
  
"Sure you aren't." Vette quips.  
  
"I am not." Eckanah insists, "Tell me, Cipher, have I done anything to make you fear my person?".  
  
"Depends on how you mean. Respectfully, you being Sith is quite enough to make one feel uneasy around your person." X'tchol says. He only realizes what he said after he finishes talking. It makes him freeze.  
  
He just needs to close his eyes and wait for the imminent feeling of a lightsaber against his neck. Because escape is impossible. He's on the twentieth floor of a residential tower, the elevators of which can only be activated using a keycard.   
  
Except no violent retaliation comes. Instead, there are a few seconds of incredibly tense silence, and then Vette bursts out laughing. Eckanah looks... oddly frustrated.  
  
"See, someone agrees with me that Sith are super creepy!" Vette exclaims.   
  
"I wouldn't precisely put it like that, but I also can't fully disagree."  
  
Eckanah makes a vague hand gesture. The intention of it appears to be wordlessly acknowledging their almost simultaneous comments, without validating them by actually replying.   
  
He has only three fingers on each hand. X'tchol notices this only now. And the fingers have sharp, hooked, claws on their hands. Human nails don't look like that. So, Red Sith are basically aliens. X'tchol never thought about that before.  
  
Vette is still giggling.   
  
Eckanah has begun vengefully chewing a piece of dried meat. He even manages to look dignified while doing so. That's actually impressive.   
  
X'tchol is finding the situation deeply confusing. This must be why he's trying to distract himself by finding unrelated things to think about.  
  
"Moving on from the previous topic. I'm very honored that you've allowed me here, but is there a particular reason for your sudden desire to speak to me?" X'tchol finally says, after realizing both his hosts will continue being pettily silent unless he says something to reel the conversation towards a more... logically coherent direction.  
  
Vette snorts, and looks about to have another laughing fit until Eckanah glares at her.  
  
"Other than the fact that Vette had, as it seems, found an accomplice in you?" Eckanah asks.   
  
"Yes, other than that." X'tchol is surprised to see Vette beaming at him after he replies. She does not have any logical motivation to beam at him. Or invite him to have dinner at three in the morning. He feels a sudden stab of guilt. She doesn't know what he actually is.   
  
Eckanah stands up, and begins pacing back a forth, long red cape flaring dramatically behind him. He appears to be thinking. "You were on Hutta, but you have not witnessed the events that took place. I have accomplished what my master thought impossible. The Jedi girl, Jaesa, abandoned her pathetic master to become my apprentice. Baras did not expect such an outcome."  
  
"Why?" X'tchol asks.  
  
"He considers me a mere brute. A blunt instrument to bludgeon his enemies with."  
  
X'tchol... thinks he understands. "And you haven't bothered to correct him, because his underestimation of your skills serves your goals?".  
  
"Your assumption is correct. But the events on Hutta raised his suspicion. I disgraced his biggest enemy. I achieved what he never could." Eckanah says.   
  
"Wow. You're always really good at making things sound fancy." Vette comments, "Wait. You're saying that Baras... might try to kill you?".  
  
"Yes. Not currently, but sooner than I'd hoped. I, however, have no intention of dying."   
  
Vette... suddenly seems much less cheery, "... that's good! I... don't wanna think about where I'll end up if you die."   
  
Interesting. So, it seems Vette is more dependent on Eckanah than she appears. Cipher notes. X’tchol reluctantly agrees.   
  
Eckanah smiles. It is terrifying, but not unattractive, just like that time on Hutta. "As I've said. I do not intend to die. My master has no honor. He would not do the honorable thing."  
  
"And what would the honorable thing be?" X'tchol asks. He is certainly curious as to what Sith Lords consider honorable behavior.  
  
"A duel to the death before the Dark Council, on Korriban, the planet of our ancestors." Eckanah sounds absolutely serious. X'tchol... is charmed, but also want to maybe bash his head against a flat surface, just to make sure that this isn't some hallucination he's having while slowly bleeding out beneath the speeder platform.  
  
Eckanah continues, either not noticing or ignoring the looks he's receiving from Vette and X'tchol, "He is well aware that I would best him in combat. No, he would spy on me. Wait for the perfect opportunity to make my death appear like an unfortunate accident. He has spies everywhere, and would deploy some of them to track my movements."  
  
"You wish to eliminate them?" X'tchol asks.  
  
"Only as a last resort." Eckanah replies, "Baras would notice their deaths. But I wish to know of them."  
  
X’tchol knows what to expect by now. How did the Empire even function before he arrived and began solving everybody’s problems? “I see. I assume finding them would be my job?"   
  
"Correct. An ally of mine, who happens to spend much of his time in the less savory parts of the galaxy, has been asked to supply me with a list of Imperial spies employed by my master. He did what was requested. I doubt the list is truly complete, but it is what we have." Having said that, Eckanah stops his pacing Instead, he picks up a datapad from one of the side tables, and tosses it to X'tchol, who almost fails to catch it.. The nerve damage might be more of a problem than X'tchol assumed.  
  
Eckanah's eyes narrow slightly. So, he noticed that.  
  
"The list of spies is on this datapad. Do not copy it. You are to observe these individuals, and to find out whether any of them were ordered to watch me."  
  
As Eckanah speaks, X'tchol finds the list, and begins scrolling through it. There are more than a hundred names on it. This Baras doesn't skimp on resources, apparently. How is he supposed to keep tabs on all of them, while still doing his official job?   
  
X'tchol looks up. Eckanah is staring at him, expectant, and so is Vette.  
  
He is being asked to do something impossible. Either because Eckanah doesn't realize how much work actually goes into tracking someone, or because Eckanah expects everybody to do whatever he wants, regardless of such small obstacles such as time and logic.  
  
His throat feels dry. X'tchol realizes he is still holding the tea. He tries some of it. It tastes vaguely like some herbs, and something flowery. Mint, maybe? Certainly not what he expected from Sith tea.   
  
But what did he expect, blood and entrails flavored tea?  
  
Somehow, this question is what gives him the courage to open his mouth, and actually make an attempt at saying what he thinks, for once. 


End file.
